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

Abstract

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