Reconstructing Glass Manufacturing Patterns in India through Raw Materials Sourcing and Ethnoarchaeological Investigations

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.

Despite the widespread distribution of Indian-made glass beads around the Indian Ocean and beyond, not much is known about South Asia’s early glass industries from the first centuries BCE through the second millennium CE. This paper will present an overview of an ongoing project designed to use elemental and isotopic characterizations of soil samples from selected regions around India to connect raw material sources to ancient glass artifacts. One of this survey project’s goals is to examine localized production patterns in order to investigate whether glass and bead making may have shifted within India regionally and temporally, in response to changing overseas demand. Another important byproduct of the survey was the recognition of local and regional variability in glass making techniques and organization, through the compilation of ethnographic accounts on these fast disappearing village-based industries.

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

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36112.0