News Archaeology 23 August 2018
Ancient Samarra’s glass was largely homemade
The city of Samarra, located in present-day Iraq, was a hub of glass-making and trade around 1200 years ago, according to archaeological artefacts examined by a team from the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, resolve a long-standing question concerning the ancient city, which acted as the capital of the Muslim Abbasid Caliphate between 836 to 892 CE – an empire that at its peak stretched some 11 million square kilometres across northern Africa, through the Arabian Peninsula and Persia, and north into the Caucasus.
Multiple archaeological excavations over many years recovered an extraordinary range of glassware from the site, but their original places of manufacture remained unknown.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/ancient-samarra-s-glass-was-largely-homemade
