Glass at the Crossroads: Production and Emulation at Phrygian Gordion

Summary

Glass vessels recovered from over sixty years of archaeological investigation at Gordion (central Turkey), the capital of ancient Phrygia, range in date from the eighth century BCE through the Roman period and represent nearly all techniques of glassworking. Several groups of luxury glass from Gordion illuminate key moments in the transmission of cultural influence and of glassmaking technology, production, and utilization from the Near East into the Mediterranean basin in the first millennium BCE. Molded glass objects from late ninth century through seventh century levels demonstrate that the Phrygians were either receiving glass objects from northern Mesopotamia, possibly in diplomatic exchange, or were themselves working glass by applying their expertise in bronze casting to imported glass ingots. Molded vessels in the Achaemenid style from the later fourth century into the under third century BCE suggest that the production of molded vessels was revived in this region under Persian influence. Categories of core-formed vessels at Gordion suggest that Phrygia may also have been a site of production during the late Classical and Hellenistic periods. This paper discusses how the important corpus of glass from Gordion informs our understanding of cultural exchange between east and west based on typological and chemical analysis.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Glass and Glass technology: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Archaeological Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage