Eternal fragile: Preliminary Analytical Approach to Glass Characterization at Early Islamic Glass Workshop in the City of Istakhr

Emami, Mohammadamin; Bayat Nejad, Farahnaz; Asadi, Ahmad Ali; Chapoulie, Rémy

doi:10.22059/jarwa.2022.333307.15

Eternal fragile: Preliminary Analytical Approach to Glass Characterization at Early Islamic Glass Workshop in the City of Istakhr

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Mohammadamin Emami ¹

Farahnaz Bayat Nejad ²

Ahmad Ali Asadi ³

Rémy Chapoulie ⁴

¹ Department of Conservation of cultural Properties and Archaeometry

² Department of Archaeology, Islamic Azad University of Tehran, Iran

³ Department of Archaeology, University of Shiraz, Iran

⁴ IRAMAT, Institut de recherche sur les Archéomatériaux, Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie, CNRS, France

10.22059/jarwa.2022.333307.15

Abstract

Glass finds from the archaeological excavation of the city of Istakhr in the Fars province was subjected for the first time to archaeometrical investigations. Based on their archaeological context, these pieces were dated back to early Islamic period, the last period of growth and prosperity of the city, before its final decline in the tenth century AD. The interdisciplinary investigations on glass pieces from Istakhr confirm an essential scientific approach due to the chemical composition of the most important antique glass workshops in the Iranian plateau based on their material characteristics and cultural evidence. Glass fragments have been analytically studied by WXRF, optical microscopy and ESEM-EDS in order to evaluate their chemical composition, micro-structure and for textural characterization. the clustering of the objects was of interest, due to discriminate between the glass finds in this region. Based on the chemical analysis, the investigated objects are therefore categorized as high “Potash-Calc”.

Keywords

Ancient glass

structural properties

chemical composition

Early Islamic Period

Istakhr