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Sunday, February 26, 2017

Glassworking at Åhus (Callmer & Henderson)

Glassworking at Åhus, S.Sweden (eighth century AD)
Johan Callmer and Julian Henderson

This article poses some very interesting questions about glass working in terms of skill levels, number of workers and so on.  Although the authors draw some conclusions at the end due to the scarcity of materials I don't think their answers to many of these questions are well supported by the Ahus finds, even though I agree with them in the larger context of Viking Era bead making evidence.

It also adds to the base of knowledge on bead working furnaces by telling us "Two severely damaged ovens were found as well as numerous pieces of completely destroyed ones" (p. 143). Over 71,000 pieces of glass working material were found on site. A solid discussion of the glass material finds is included in the article, including a typology for glass materials. Types of beads, decorations styles, colours are also covered as one would expect from Callmer.

On a social level the authors consider the working staff to have been at least 4 workers.  Two assigned to working with the glass, drawing rods, making reticella, and so on; and two devoted to tending to the furnace itself.

The article also presents preliminary chemical analysis of various glass material allowing at least some of the material to be linked to Roman mosaic sources.

 Link to article

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