165-184

Ornaments of glass and faience from Armenochori on Astypalaia

Σύμμεικτα

• Τριανταφυλλίδης, Παύλος

The subject of the current study is the publication of some ornaments of glass and faience, which were found as grave offerings during rescue excavations by the XXII Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities at the site Patelles, at the southwest end of the Armenochori area on the island of Astypalaia. These small objects are for toiletry (probably a necklace) and are mainly relief and plain glass beads, a few faience beads, which were found in one of the two excavated chamber tombs dated to the Mycenaean period (between the LH IIIA2 and LH IIIC period), and two glass bracelets deposited in a grave of the Early Christian period (6th c. AD).The necklace consisted of thirteen plain or relief beads of glass and faience along with one of steatite. The relief, dark-blue to dark- green, glass beads were made in moulds in the shape of an eight-leaf rosette or of a hanging helix. The white thin-grained faience beads are either plain flat ring-shaped or biconicalwith vertical flutes or even cylindrical with thin ends and protruding discoid edges.Since such finds are still rare, our knowledge of the production and the distribution of glass and faience small objects during the Mycenaean period within the geographic area of the Aegean is still very limited. Based mainly on typological comparisons of similar glass and faience finds with the ones from Astypalaia, and also on the examination of the manufacture techniques used for their production, an attempt is made to define the workshop where these finds were made, with references to the possible production centres of glass materials in the Aegean Sea (Rhodes), Crete (Knossos) and the Mainland Greece (Mycenae, Midea, Tiryns, Thebes). At the same time, the significance of the glass and faience trade on the island of Astypalaia is examined in relation to the sea routes between Astypalaia and the rest of the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the rest of the Aegean and the Middle East.

• History and Archaeology

• Αρχαιολογία
• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

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