Artemios Oikonomou, Associate Editor for Archaeological Glass
I know I haven’t been around for quite some time, but there’s a good reason. Nice things are due to be aired shortly regarding vitreous materials and I’m sure going to let you know. So, the current news is a brand new project, Myc-MVP, with myself being the Principal Investigator. The project is in its infancy, only launched just some weeks ago on 26 September 2022.Myc-MVP stands for Mycenaean Vitreous Production: A novel interdisciplinary approach towards resolving critical taxonomy issues and is funded by the Hellenic Institute for Research and Innovation within the framework of the 3rd Call for Postdoctoral Researches.
Maria and I were loading and discussing the results of fresh analysis.
A few words over the project to draw your attention and hopefully keep you tuned. This project will investigate both faience and glass objects from various Mycenaean sites in the Peloponnese and mainland Greece. You may know that faience has been the focus of research in early vitreous materials for almost 40 years. We also do know that glass constituted an integral element of the Mycenaean material culture. Research over the last decades has greatly enhanced our understanding of the production and distribution of glass and faience across time and space, resulting in a complex, yet fascinating picture of the socio-economic and cultural aspects underlying vitreous production.
The main problem with both materials is that they do suffer a great degree of degradation, with the smaller objects, such as beads and relief plaques, which constitute the largest set of artefacts retrieved, being particularly vulnerable. The degree, extent and nature of this degradation -critically distorting the visual characteristics of the artefacts- affect the way in which the material can be studied and interpreted by archaeologists, conservation scientists and archaeometrists. Practically, the final corrosion state of the artifact imposes constraints on its taxonomy, since it has lost the glassy state/glaze and with degradation yielding similar optical effects telling glass apart from faience can prove challenging.
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| The µ-XRF setup upon analysis of a beautiful Mycenaean glass button. |
In few words, the principal aim of Myc-MVP is to establish an unprecedented protocol to tackle this very problem of Mycenaean vitreous materials retrieved in archaeological excavations and stored lacking proper identification (either interchangeably or even seen as ceramic or stone) and preventive conservation practices, failing, thus, to be classified, interpreted, reconstructed and studied successfully; the latter also imposing risks for their future preservation. The novel approach of this project aims at applying state of the art X-ray technology such as μ-Xrf, macro-XRF, PIXE, PIGE and RBS to accomplish its objectives.
The project is hosted at the XRF Laboratory of N.C.S.R. Demokritos in Athens (Dr Andreas Karydas-Director of the X-Ray Laboratory) and is a collaboration between the host organization, the National Museum in Athens and the University of Ioannina. The research team consists of me, Dr Maria Kaparou and Ourania Kordali while a PhD student will come on board in due time for a short term to assist in the analysis of the assemblage.
The analytical work has already started and great things keep coming up. Do follow the website and/or the social media accounts of the project to dive with us within the fascinating world of vitreous studies.
www.myc-mvp.eu
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