Isotopic evidence for the primary production, provenance and trade of late bronze age glass in the mediterranean

The earliest known man made glass comes from Mesopotamia and dates to the 23rd century BC. By the 16th century BC the first glass vessels appear in Mesopotamia, but the earliest evidence for the fusion of glass from raw materials has been found at the 13th century BC Egyptian site of Qantir. Chemical analyses of this elite Late Bronze Age material have produced compositional distinctions between glasses found in Mesopotamia and Egypt. It is however debatable whether trace element concentrations provide a (geological) provenance for the glasses. By using neodymium and strontium isotopes to fingerprint well-dated chemically analysed 15th to 11th century BC glass samples, we show that independent primary production probably occurred in both Egypt and Mesopotamia in the 14th century BC, and that both of these areas exported glass to Greece. We also discuss the technological implications for glass manufacture and colouring that these new data provide. The results add significant new scientific evidence for glass trade between Late Bronze Age palatial societies. Moreover, it is the first time that this methodology has been used to investigate Bronze Age glass.