Mycenaean beads from Kazanaki, Volos: a further node in the LBA glass network

Finished glass objects are found in large quantities scattered throughout Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and the Aegean during the late second millennium BC. We propose that glass was primary produced in a few centres, then transferred and exchanged to the more widely available secondary glass making workshops throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Glass was used and consumed in the Mycenaean world, however there have not been many studies discussing its provenance. The present paper examines glass beads found in a tholos tomb at Kasanaki, which is located in the inlet of the Pagasetic Gulf where actually functioned the big palatial center of Iolkos, with whom the tomb is certainly connected. We attempt to investigate the production, exchange and consumption of glass in Late Bronze Age (LBA) Mycenaean Greece. The samples were analysed using Electron Probe Microanalysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy to determine their chemical composition and identify their raw materials. The present study characterises the glass from Eastern Thessaly -in fact from a site located in the biggest port of Central Greece from where all the commercial exchanges of Thessaly with the Aegean World were taking place - and positions it within a broader compositional group. Performing multivariate analysis of the major elements and comparing our samples with LBA glass from the literature, it is examined whether the glass was made locally or internationally exchanged. The paper adds to our current knowledge of glass manufacturing in the LBA mainland Greece

A study of Hellenistic gilding practice and manufacture of funerary wreaths

A number of fragments from four Hellenistic wreaths were studied in order to better understand their manufacture and to identify suitable conservation treatment (Asderaki 2001). They were excavated during rescue work by the 13th Ephorate of Prehistorical and Classical Antiquities at the cemetery of ancient Demetrias in Magnesia, Central Greece. Three of the wreaths studied date to the early 3rd century BC, and one to the late 2nd century BC. Sampling was governed by the availability of fragments remaining from the conservation process, and analytical methods were chosen to provide as much insight as possible into the production and corrosion of these wreaths. In this paper, we concentrate on the gilding practices as well as manufacture techniques identified in the samples. The wreaths were made to a high standard of craftsmanship, using often high quality material: ample gold leaf, cinnabar pigment and a pure kaolinite gesso. This use of high quality raw materials matches the relative scarcity of the wreaths among the overall number of tombs excavated: only about one percent yielded remains of these ornamental items. However, despite their relative scarcity, they appear to have been made on a regular scale, using standardised methods and primary raw materials rather than merely recycling circulating metal and working on a semiskilled ad-hoc level of craftsmanshi

The sanctuary of Hercules in Sesklo Region, Volos, Greece: an archaeometric approach of the archaic bronze objects

The study of the bronze offerings obtained from the Sanctuary of Hercules in the area of Sesklo, Municipality of Volos, Thessaly, Greece is presented in this paper. The objects were examined initially with non-destructive followed with invasive methods in order to better understand their manufacture technology. The provenance of copper is also briefly discussed