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This paper presents the results of a pilot study researching the usefulness of chemical analysis using portable XRF (pXRF) technology on Late Bronze Age (LBA) plantash glasses from Tell el-Amarna in Middle Egypt. 68 objects from the Egyptian Museum, Berlin have been analysed and the data evaluated in preparation for a season of chemical analysis of glasses at Amarna:
Since the beginning of the 20th century excavations at Amarna have yielded numerous glass-working related objects, including glass rods, ingots and cylindrical ingot moulds. The objects from old excavations are mostly only loosely provenanced and are kept in museums worldwide, although finds from modern excavations, stored on site, can be referenced to specific findspots [1]. For instance, recent excavations at houses M50.14-16 have produced over 300 glass objects, including two ingots [2].
Amarna is one of the first sites in Egypt to have produced glass from raw materials. Therefore, it is of importance to gather all possible information on the chemical composition of the objects at Amarna. Colourants, trace-, major- and minor elements can help determine the origins of these glasses and to chemically relate these items to other LBA glasses. For example, some of the glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck may have been made in Egypt [3]. Furthermore, blue is the most prevalent colour of Amarna glasses, being derived from cobalt or copper, but it is not always possible to tell the difference with the naked eye.
Since it is impossible to export the objects from Egypt, or to sample and analyse such a large quantity of objects using laboratory methods, and despite the known issues in detecting natron and magnesia, pXRF technology is the only feasible solution. We conclude that pXRF can be applied for the chemical analysis of LBA plantash glasses from Egypt to determine an object’s origin and colourants.
[1] For example P.T. Nicholson, Brilliant Things for Akhenaten: The Production of Glass, Vitreous Materials and Pottery at Amarna Site O45.1, Egypt Exploration Society Excavation Memoirs 80, London, 2007, and B. Kemp, A. Stevens, Busy Lives at Amarna: Excavations in the Main City (Grid 12 and the House of Ranefer, N49.18). Egypt Exploration Society Excavation Memoirs 90, London, 2010.

[2] A.K. Hodgkinson, Archaeological excavations of a bead workshop in the Main City at Tell el-Amarna, Journal of Glass Studies 57. The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 279–284, 2015.

[3] C.M. Jackson, P.T. Nicholson, The provenance of some glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck, Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 295–301, 2010.

Between 18 October and 13 November 2014, excavations were undertaken in the Main City South at Amarna. The team consisted of Anna Hodgkinson (field director), Susan Kelly, Ashley Bryant, and Kimberley Watt, and inspector from the Ministry of State for Antiquities, Mohamed Khalil. The work was funded by grants from the G.A. Wainwright Fund, the Corning Museum of Glass (Rakow Grant), the Association for the History of Glass and the Thames Valley Ancient Egypt Society.

This paper demonstrates how Oxford Archaeology  have successfully adopted open source geospatial software, in particular the desktop GIS packages gvSIG and Quantum GIS (QGIS) in an active move away from proprietary mapping software such as CAD or ArcGIS. Open source GIS has been successfully applied for the visualisation and analysis of archaeological survey data, proving extremely capable of handling 2D and 3D vector and raster data. Oxford Archaeology have gone one step further, introducing the use of open source illustration software, Inkscape, for the editing of vector maps and the production of high-quality publication-standard illustrations.

Cobalt was commonly used as a colourant in the Egyptian glass industries of the 18th dynasty, dark blue glass being a regular find at palatial and settlement sites, including Amarna and Malqata. The main source of cobalt ore used during this period has been identified in the Egyptian western desert, around the oases of Kharga and Dakhla. In order to better understand the chaîne opératoire of Late Bronze Age glass production and -working, in particular with regard to cobalt ore, at Amarna, chemical analysis by portable X-Ray fluorescence was carried out in the field. This was done on contextualised archaeological material excavated at the site of Amarna, which cannot be exported from Egypt for analysis. The results of this study demonstrate how cobalt ore was used in the various known workshop sites at Amarna, resulting in a deeper understanding of raw materials use and exchange across this settlement.

The Value of Colour , an interdisciplinary group of scholars come together to examine economically relevant questions concerning a narrow slice of social and cognitive history: namely, colours. Traditionally, the study of colours has been approached from a cultural or linguistic perspective. The essays collected in this volume highlight the fact that in earliest human history, colours appear in contexts of prestige (value) and commerce. Acquisition, production, labour, circulation and consumption are among the issues discussed by individual authors to show how colourful materials acquired meaning in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. Spanning the Palaeolithic to the early Imperial Rome, the contributions also demonstrate the many questions asked and approaches used by historians in the growing fi eld of Colour Studies. 70 berlin studies of the ancient world berlin studies of the ancient world · 70 edited by topoi excellence cluster