Sixth-century Byzantine glass from Limes Fortifications on Serbian Danube

Abstract

Thirty-two glasses from four Byzantine fortifications located on the Danube in Serbia, dated to the sixth-century CE, are analysed by PIXE/PIGE, and their compositional types are determined. Most of the glasses belong to Late Antique type Foy 2.1 (22), the rest being Foy 3.2 (3), HIMTa (1), Levantine (2), plant-ash (3), and coloured black (1). The diversity of compositional types and provenances characterizing the same area during the third to fourth century, changed in the sixth century into uniformity of glass types and provenance: more than two-thirds of all glass types represent only one type (Foy 2.1), and at least 87% of all imports came from a single region, Egypt. Apart from two glasses reported herein, no Levantine glasses are reported from Serbia, and almost none from the inner Balkans, which is in contrast with the rest of the Mediterranean excluding Egypt. The reasons for this might be the economic aftermath of earlier Hunnic raids or possible centralization of raw glass imports during the Justinian rebuilding program. Two plant ash glasses of mixed composition, showing characteristics of Egyptian plant-ash flux and Mesopotamian sand, likely represent recycled glass originating from these two regions.