Mamluk Glass

The salvage excavation conducted in the al-Waṭṭa quarter in Safed (see Dalali-Amos and Getzov, this volume) yielded a large and rich glass assemblage dated to the Mamluk period. The significance of this group lies in its being the first well-documented assemblage unearthed in a dwelling area that was dated by coins and pottery to a short, specific period. Until the last decade, the publication of Mamluk-period glass was limited. Fragments of such vessels were found in salvage excavations, usually in small numbers, and only part of the material was published. The al-Waṭṭa corpus is one of the largest Mamluk-period glass
assemblages ever studied in Israel, together with three other glass assemblages from Safed: one from a previous excavation in the al-Waṭṭa quarter (Katsnelson 2014a), and two, from the medieval castle. The two excavations within the medieval castle yielded Crusader glass (Gorin-Rosen 2015) in one, and Mamluk glass, mostly dated to the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries CE, in the other (Katsnelson 2017).

The glass vessels presented in this report were excavated during three seasons conducted at Khirbat Burin in the eastern Sharon plain.They are discussed in chronological and typological order based on the stratigraphy identified by the excavator. The fragments chosen for discussion and illustrated in this study are mainly those of the Mamluk period, as they are predominant at the site and until recently, only rarely mentioned in publications.
The pre-Mamluk glass vessels uncovered at Khirbat Burin present the most common types of the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. Another group of vessels is from the Early Islamic period, presenting small fragments of diagnostic types, known from other sites in the region. The importance of the glass assemblage from Khirbat Burin lies in the well-dated group of Mamluk vessels, which comprises the main subject of this report.

The 2013 excavation at Ḥorbat ‘Ofrat yielded 140 glass fragments, 90 of which were diagnostic (see Alexandre, this volume). Nine representative vessels were drawn and are discussed below; others are
mentioned without illustrations.
The glass finds from the 2013 season represent the Late Roman
and late Byzantine periods, and include a few Crusader and Mamluk objects as well.

Thirty-six fragments of glass vessels were discovered in the excavation at Nein, of which twenty-six were identified and dated to the Late Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad and Abbasid periods (Fig. 12:1–4). In addition, a multicolored glass bracelet (Fig. 12:5) and a glazed clay bead (Fig. 12:6), both from the Mamluk period, were found. The glass artifacts are important primarily because they include remains of industrial glass debris (Fig. 13), indicating that a glass industry existed in the immediate vicinity.

The glassware includes plain vessels that are well-known and common alongside vessels decorated with a variety of techniques. Glass assemblages from the Early Islamic period are known from excavations in cities such as Tiberias, Bet Sheʽan, Hammat Gader, Caesarea and Ramla, but are not as widely known from rural regions in the Galilee. The glass vessels from this excavation are an example of an Early Islamic assemblage that comes from a rural settlement in the Lower Galilee.