Glass Production in Sri Lanka: New Data from Giribawa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Ancient Glass around the Indian Ocean" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A little more than 25 years ago, glass furnaces were discovered at Giribawa, a site located in the northwest part of the island of Sri Lanka. Chemical analysis revealed that raw glass and glass beads were certainly manufactured at this site. Excavations have resumed at Giribawa in 2022, with a special focus on the glass production area, to address a number of questions related to the glass technology and the chronology of the glass production that remained unanswered following the first exploration of the site. A range of glass artifacts including finished glass beads, glass tubes, chunks of raw materials, and glass adhering to refractory materials and ceramics were analyzed via laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and results will be presented here. Evidence of ancient glass production in South Asia is scarce and a better knowledge of the glass production at Giribawa is important to understand the glass trade and trading connection within Sri Lanka and between Sri Lanka and the rest of the Indian Ocean.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Current Research on Ancient Glass around the Indian Ocean

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36203.0