Analytical study of Roman glasses from Southeastern Spain

Abstract

Recent archaeological excavations carried out in the Iberian-Roman city of La Alcudia (Ilici , Hispania) have provided some important assemblages of Roman glass. The present paper summarizes the results of archaeological and archaeometric studies carried out on two assemblages from different sectors and chronology. The first set of glasses was unearthed in a sector corresponding to a section of the city’s west wall. The level in which the glasses were found is dated from the mid 1st to the mid 2nd century AD. The second set of glasses comes from an area known as Casitas Ibéricas (4th - 7th centuries AD). These glasses were found in ditches and pits, which had disturbed the more ancient archaeological levels. Most of the fragments in both sets represent blown glass. The archaeometric study concentrated on deter-mining the chemical composition of a representative selection of glass fragments from the two chronological periods in order to observe possible differences between them. Chromophores responsible for glass colour were identified. Moreover, the state of conservation of the glasses was evaluated in order to determine the nature of degradation processes. The samples were studied using conventional optical microscopy (OM), X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX), and visible spectrophotometry (VIS).