Indian Glass: Chronology and Distribution in Eastern Africa

Beads for the nomads of late antiquity: Chemical characterization of glass from the Blemmyan tumuli at Kalabsha, Nubia, of the mid‐fourth century CE

“… Principal components 1 and 2 were calculated using the concentrations of MgO, CaO, Sr, Zr, Cs, Ba and U for samples belonging to glass groups m‐Na‐Al 1–4 and 6 and for those from Nubia. The m‐Na‐Al 1 glass samples are unpublished data from Sri Lanka and South India; the m‐Na‐Al 2 glass samples are beads from Chaul (Dussubieux et al 2008 ); the m‐Na‐Al 3 glass samples are beads from Kopia (Dussubieux and Kanungo 2013 ); the m‐Na‐Al 4 glass samples are glass vessel fragments from Sumatra (Dussubieux 2009 ); and the m‐Na‐Al 6 glass are from the site of Juani Primary School (Dussubieux and Wood 2021 ) . [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]…”

“…Dussubieux and co-authors distinguished five subtypes of high-alumina mineral soda glass (m-Na-Al 1-4 and 6) based on the contents of five elements: Sr, Zr, Ba, U and Cs (Dussubieux et al 2010, tab. 3;Dussubieux and Wood 2021). Using a principal component analysis (PCA) and the following glass constituents: MgO, CaO, Zr, Sr, Ba, Cs and U, the m-Na-Al glass beads found in Nubia were compared with the five m-Na-Al subtypes showing similarities with the m-Na-Al 1 glass.…”

Crafting Swahili Beads: Exploring a New Glass Bead Assemblage from Northern Zanzibar, Tanzania

“…No comprehensive morphological study of East African beads has been carried out. However, a recent publication by Dussubieux and Wood (2021) outlines the chemical analyses of several beads from East African sites, highlighting the diversity within the m-Na-Al chemical group. Six sub-groups of this glass type have so far been identified (Table 1), and at least four of the sub-groups are known to have circulated in sub-Saharan Africa in the first and second millennium.…”

“…The first, m-Na-Al 1, is associated with beads from first millennium sites in East Africa, such as Unguja Ukuu in Zanzibar, and are some of the earliest glass beads imported into East Africa (McIntosh et al, 2020;Wood, 2018). The m-Na-Al 2 glass beads seem to have been imported from the fourteenth century AD onward (García-Heras et al, 2021;Robertshaw et al, 2010), while a newly identified group, m-Na-Al 6, may have been in circulation between the ninth and thirteenth centuries (Dussubieux & Wood, 2021). Although a relationship between the different chemical sub-groups and the Indo-Pacific bead series outlined above has been suggested by Dussubieux and Wood (2021), further analysis is needed to understand the relationship between bead morphology, bead series, and their chemical composition.…”

“…The m-Na-Al 2 glass beads seem to have been imported from the fourteenth century AD onward (García-Heras et al, 2021;Robertshaw et al, 2010), while a newly identified group, m-Na-Al 6, may have been in circulation between the ninth and thirteenth centuries (Dussubieux & Wood, 2021). Although a relationship between the different chemical sub-groups and the Indo-Pacific bead series outlined above has been suggested by Dussubieux and Wood (2021), further analysis is needed to understand the relationship between bead morphology, bead series, and their chemical composition. There does, however, seem to be a correlation between m-Na-Al 6 beads and the East Coast Indo-Pacific beads of southern Africa.…”