From Mine to Microscope : Advances in the Study of Ancient Technology

These twenty papers dedicated to Mike Tite focus upon the interpretation of ancient artefacts and technologies, particularly through the application of materials analysis. Instruments from the human eye to mass spectrometry provide insights into a range of technologies ranging from classical alum extraction to Bronze Age wall painting, and cover materials as diverse as niello, flint, bronze, glass and ceramic. Ranging chronologically from the Neolithic through to the medieval period, and geographically from Britain to China, these case studies provide a rare overview which will be of value to students, teachers and researchers with an interest in early material culture.

Table of Contents

Lead Frits in Islamic and Hispano-moresque Glazed Productions (J Molera, T Pradell, N Salvado and M Vendrell-Saz)
The Emergence of Ceramic Technology and its Evolution as Revealed with the use of Scientific Techniques (Yannis Maniatis)
Neolithic Pottery from Switzerland: Raw Materials and Manufacturing Processes (M Maggetti)
Low-tech in Amalfi: provenance and date assignation of Medieval Middle-Eastern Pottery by Application of Eyeball Technique (Robert B J Mason)
Some Implications of the use of Wood Ash in Chinese stoneware glazes of the 9th-12th Centuries (Nigel Wood)
The Hispano-Moresque Tin Glazed Ceramics Produced in Tereul, Spain: A Technology Between Two Historical Periods, 13th-16th c. AD (J Perez-Arantegui, J Ortega and C Escriche)
Beads beyond number: faience from the 'Isis Tomb' at Vulci, Italy (Andrew P Middleton)
Egyptian blue in Greek painting between 2500 and 50 BC (Ioanna Kakoulli)
Links between glazes and glass in mid-2nd millennium BC Mesopotamia and Egypt (S Paynter)
The fish's tale: A Foreign Glassworker at Amarna? (A J Shortland)
Ancient Copper Red Glasses: Investigation and Analysis by Microbeam Techniques (D J Barber, I C Freestone and K M Moulding)
The Provenance of Archaeological Plant Ash Glasses (Julian Henderson)
Microanalysis of Glass by Laser Induced Plasma Spectroscopy (Marc S Walton)
New Thoughts on Niello (Peter Northover and Susan La Niece)
From Mine to Microbe - the Neolithic Copper Melting Crucibles from Switzerland (Thilo Rehren)
Across the wine dark seas: Sailor tinkers and royal cargoes in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean (Zofia Anna Stos)
What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been: Lead Isotopes and Archaeology (A M Pollard)
A Response to the Paper of A.M. Pollard: What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been: Lead Isotopes and Archaeology (Noel Gale)
The Juice of the Pomegranate: Processing and Quality Control of Alumen in Antiquity, and Making Sense of Pliny's Phorimon and Paraphoron (A J Hall and Effie Photos-Jones)
Finding the Floorstone (P T Craddock and M R Cowell)
‘Sweet waste’: The industrial waste from the medieval sugar refinery at the Tawahin es-Sukkar in Jordan (E. Photos-Jones, A. Hall , R. Jones and E. Pantos)

Ian Freestone is Professor of Archaeological Materials and Technology at University College London.

Thilo Rehren is Professor for Archaeological Materials and Director of the Science and Technology in Archaeology Research Center, Nicosia, Cyprus. His research focuses on the reconstruction and understanding of the technological processes related to the manufacture of metals, glass, glazes and ceramics.