Glass Bracelets from the Medieval Settlement of Hisn al-Tinat, in southern Turkey

Summary

Hisn al-Tinat is a small, fortified port settlement in what is now southern Turkey. The site was occupied over the course of the 8th-12th centuries CE, during which time the region served as a border zone between Byzantium to the north and the Islamic caliphates to the south. Recent study has suggested that this frontier (al-thugūr) was not a militarized "no man’s land," but rather a multi-cultural, populated area that was part of an interconnected economic trade network. An examination of the glass fragments recovered from excavation of the site bears out this image. This paper focuses on some of the most interesting glass finds from the site: glass bangle bracelets dating to the 10th-12th centuries CE. Examining the art historical, archaeological, and chemical evidence of these bracelets contributes to our overall understanding of the social, economic, and technological circumstances of this time and region.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

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