Long-distance trade in al-‘Ūla from the Mamluk period to the 20th century AD: technological, morphological and compositional study of glass bangles collected in al-‘Ūla oasis (Hejaz, Saudi Arabia)
Keywords:
glass, bangles, Islamic, Trade, ArabiaAbstract
Over four hundred fragmentary coloured glass bangles have been so far collected in the al-‘Ūla oasis during the archaeological survey carried out within the framework of the ongoing al-‘Ūla Cultural Oasis Project (UCOP) led by Archaïos, funded and steered by the French Agency for al-‘Ūla Development (AFALULA) on behalf of the Royal Commission for al-‘Ūla (RCU). A technological and morphological study has enabled the establishment of a typology and a relative chronology of the various glass jewellery productions in al-‘Ūla. Several criteria allow us to isolate different glass productions and to draw connections between al-‘Ūla’s assemblage, still unpublished, and other glass bangles corpus located in the neighbouring regions, mainly in Palestine and Egypt, and farther afield, in the Indian Ocean and in Bohemia. Spatial distribution and compositional analysis (LA-ICP-MS) of the well-dated types of glass bangles thus provide evidence to both the evolution of al-‘Ūla oasis and its role within the trade networks and the Hajj route from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries AD.
References
Al-Bashaireh K. 2016. Production Technology Of Glass Bracelets From The West Cemetery Of Umm El-Jimal In Northeastern Jordan. Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry 16 (3).
Arbel Y. & Volynsky F. 2019. Late Ottoman-Period Buildings and Late Chalcolithic-Period Finds at Kafr ‘Ana, Or Yehuda. 'Atiqot/עתיקות, 203-218.
Blackman W. S. 1968. The Fellahin of Upper Egypt. 1927. New impression, London: Frank Cass.
Boulogne S. 2008. Les bracelets de verre coloré polychromes des sites de Damas, Maṣyaf, Tell Abū Sarbūṭ et Ḫirbat fāris au Bilād al-Šām mamelouk et ottoman: essai de synthèse. Bulletin d’études orientales, (Tome LVII): 127–154.
Boulogne S. & Hardy-Guilbert C. 2010. Glass Bangles of al-Shiḥr, Ḥaḍramawt (Fourteenth-Nineteenth Centuries), a corpus of new data for the understanding of glass bangle manufacture in Yemen. Proceedings of the seminar for Arabian studies, 40: 135–148.
Boulogne S. & Henderson J. 2009. Indian Glass in the Middle east. Medieval and Ottoman Glass Bangles from central Jordan. Journal Of Glass Studies, 51: 53–75.
Carboni S. 1994. Glass bracelets from the Mamluk period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Journal of Glass Studies 36: 126–129.
Charloux G., Loreto R., Al Dayil A., Al Maliki T., Marcolongo A., Morel Q., ... & Al-Tirâd A. K. 2011. The Saudi-Italian-French Archaeological Project at Dumat al-Jandal: 2010 Season. Rencontres sabéennes 15: 131–154. Moscou, The State Museum of Oriental Art.
De Vincenz A. 2017. Ottoman Pottery and Glass Bracelets from Yafo (Jaffa), Jerusalem Boulevard and Its Vicinity. 'Atiqot, 88: 115.
Duckworth C. N., Mattingly, D. J., Chenery, S., & Smith, V. C. 2016. End of the line? Glass bangles, technology, recycling, and trade in Islamic North Africa. Journal of Glass Studies, 58: 135–169.
Francis Jr, P. 1990. Beadmaking in Islam: The African Trade and the Rise of Hebron. Beads: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers, 2 (1): 15–28.
Freestone I. C. 2006. Glass production in Late Antiquity and the Early Islamic period: a geochemical perspective. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 257 (1): 201–216.
Gaborieau M. 1966. Les musulmans du Népal. Objets et mondes: la revue du Musée de l'homme 6 (2): 121-132.
Gratuze B. 2013. Glass characterisation using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry methods.: Pages 201–234 in K. H. Janssens (ed.), Modern methods for analysing archaeological and historical glass, vol. 1. John Wiley & Sons.
Hansman J. 1985. Julfār, an Arabian Port: Its Settlement and Far Eastern Ceramic Trade from the 14th to the 18th Centuries (Vol. 22). Psychology Press.
Hardy-Guilbert C. 2001. Archaeological research at al-Shiḥr, the Islamic port of Ḥaḍramawt, Yemen (1996-1999). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 31: 69–79.
Hardy-Guilbert C., Guennec-Coppens L., & Mery S. 2002. Al-Shihr, un port d'Arabie face à l'Afrique. Journal des africanistes, 72 (2): 39–53.
Hitchner R. B. 2008. The Archaeology of Fazzān. Volume 2, Site Gazetteer, Pottery and other Survey Finds. Edited by David J. Mattingly. Society for Libyan Studies Monograph 7. Libyan Studies, 39: 316–317.
Insoll T. 2002. The archaeology of post medieval Timbuktu. Sahara, 13: 7–22.
Insoll T. 2003. The archaeology of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa. Cambridge university press.
Kaspers F. 2015. Beads from Jabloneč: A History in Beads. BEADS, 78.
Katsnelson N. 2012. The Glass Finds In: Ben-Shlomo, D. The Azor Cemetery Moshe Dothan's Excavations, 1958 and 1960. IAAR 50: 183–189.
Lal B. B. 1952. Studies in early and mediaeval Indian ceramics—some glass and glass-like artefacts from Bellary, Kolhapur, Maski, Nasik and Maheshwari. Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, 14(1): 48–58.
Low M. C. 2020. Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj. Columbia University Press.
Monod T. 1975. A propos des bracelets de verre sahariens. Bulletin de l’IFAN, 34: 703–718.
Nahshoni P. 2008. Samakh Caves, Naẖal No ‘am. Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel/חדשות ארכיאולוגיות: חפירות וסקרים בישראל.
Nambirajan M. 2009. Bekal Excavation (1997-2001). Archaeological Survey of India.
Nový P. 2008. Jablonecká bižuterie. Grada Publishing as.
Ogutu J., Kuzbari D. & Carter R. 2018. Typological and chronological description of glass bangles from Fuwairit, northern Qatar (18th to 19th Century AD). Poster presented at the Seminar for Arabian Studies, London.
Ouahnouna B. 2020. Glass Finds from the Magen Avraham Compound, Yafo (Jaffa). 'Atiqot/עתיקות, 349-354.
Perrot G. & Chipiez C. 1885. History of Art in Phoenicia and its Dependencies (2 volumes). Chapman and Hall, limited.
Phelps M. 2018. Glass supply and trade in early Islamic Ramla: an investigation of the plant ash glass. Things that travelled: Mediterranean glass in the first millennium CE: 236–282.
Puigaudeau (Du), O. 1970. Arts et coutumes des Maures. Chapitres II. La vie matérielle. II: l'habillement. Hesp. Tamuda, 11: 5–93.
Rolland J. 2021. Le verre de l'Europe celtique, Approches archéométriques, technologiques et sociales d'un artisanat du prestige au second âge du Fer. Sidestone Press.
Sankalia H. D. & Dikshit M. G. 1952. Excavations at Brahmapuri (Kolhapur) 1945-46 (Vol. 5). Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute.
Schibille N., Meek A., Wypyski M. T., Kröger J., Rosser-Owen M. & Wade Haddon R. (2018). The glass walls of Samarra (Iraq): Ninth-century Abbasid glass production and imports. PLoS One, 13 (8), e0201749.
Seetzen U. J. 1859. Ulrich Jasper Seetzen's Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petrarca und Unter-Aegypten: Commentare zu Ulrich Jasper Seetzen's Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina, Phönicien, die Transjordan-Länder, Arabia Petraea und Unter-Aegypten: nebst sämmtlichen Original-Charten Seetzen's. 4 (Vol. 4). Reimer.
Shindo Y. 2001. The Classification and Chronology of the Islamic Glass Bracelets from al-Tūr, Sinai. Senri ethnological studies, 55: 73–100.
Shinnie P. L. & Shinnie M. 1978. Debeira West: a mediaeval Nubian town; University of Ghana Expedition to Nubia. Aris and Phillips.
Spaer M. 1988. The pre-islamic glass bracelets of Palestine. Journal of Glass Studies, 30: 51–61.
Spaer M. 1992. The Islamic glass bracelets of Palestine: preliminary findings. Journal of Glass Studies, 34: 44–62.
Spaer M. 2009. Ancient glass in the Israel Museum: beads and other small objects. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, cop. 2001.
Swan C. M., Rehren T., Lankton J., Gratuze B. & Brill R. H. 2017. Compositional observations for Islamic glass from Sīrāf, Iran, in the Corning Museum of Glass collection. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 16: 102–116.
Tsuk T., Bordowicz I. & Taxel I. 2016. Majdal Yābā: The History and Material Culture of a Fortified Village in Late Ottoman-and British Mandate-Palestine. Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 3(1): 37–88.
Vallet É. 2010. L’Arabie marchande: État et commerce sous les sultans rasūlides du Yémen (626-858/1229-1454) (Vol. 1). Publications de la Sorbonne.
Volney C. F. 1793. Travels Through Syria and Egypt, in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785: Containing the Present Natural and Political State of Those Countries, Their Productions, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce: with Observations on the Manners, Customs, and Government of the Turks and Arabs. Messrs. White, Byrne, W. Porter, Moore, Dornin, and Wm. Jones.
Weir S. 1989. Palestinian Costume. British Museum Publications Ltd.
Whitcomb D. S. 1983. Islamic Glass from Al-Qadim, Egypt in International Glass Conference, June 6-12, 1982. Journal of Glass Studies Corning, NY, 25: 101–108.
Zanon M. 2013. Tyana/Kemerhisar (Niğde): Glass bracelets of the Byzantine and Islamic period. Anatolia antiqua. Eski Anadolu, 21(1): 181–197.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Archaeopress Publishing, Oxford, UK
