Chemical Composition and Provenance of Bead Glass From Medieval and Postmedieval Ethiopia

ABSTRACT The central and eastern regions of medieval Ethiopia were characterized by intensive transcultural connections, as evidenced by the presence of imported glass bead artifacts. An assemblage of over 18,800 beads and their fragments, currently in the Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa, has been studied during the SolZag Project. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 133 glass beads from eight sites of the local and Islamic cultures dated between the eighth and 16th centuries ce . A study of the glass samples using laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) revealed that they fell into a number of compositional types. Beads made from plant ash‐soda‐lime glass associated with Middle Eastern (northern Syria, Iran, and Iraq) production dated to the 9th–10th centuries ce and beads with East Mediterranean (Egypt and Levant) origin dated after the mid‐10th century dominated the assemblage. Many beads were made of Indian mineral‐soda‐high‐alumina glass as well as Central Asian plant ash‐soda high‐alumina glass. European beads are represented by lead glass and soda‐lime glass. The outcomes of this investigation offer novel evidence pertaining to the provenance and chronology of glass beads extant in medieval and postmedieval Northeast Africa. They further contribute hitherto unavailable data to the ongoing research concerning the land and sea trade contacts of Ethiopia from that period.