TITLE:
Preliminary Informative Results on Glass Tesserae from Vth-VIth Century AD Mosaics in Albania
AUTHORS:
Esmeralda Vataj, Nikolla Civici, Teuta Dilo
KEYWORDS:
Glass Tesserae, Micro X-Ray Fluorescence, Qualitative Analyses, Optical Microscopy
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering,
Vol.3 No.7,
June
29,
2015
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some preliminary results regarding raw materials used in ancient glass mosaic
tesserae. The studied glass tesserae were recovered during the archeological excavation of
the mosaics at the Christian basilicas in Byllis, Lin and Elbasan, which according to the archeologists
were built between the end of Vth and beginning of VIth century AD. In the recent years, several
studies are performed on opaque coloured glass but in Albania only few studies are performed
in this field. These samples are analyzed using optical microscopy and micro X-ray fluorescence.
Optical microscopy is used to analyse the microstructure of the glass tesserae. The main elements
and trace elements are determined qualitatively from measurements performed with micro X-ray
fluorescence. The glass matrix resulted to be very heterogeneous with too many inclusions dispersed
on it. Several elements which are responsible for the color and opacity of glass tesserae are
determined. Comparisons are made between the same colors of glass tesserae from different archaeological
sites.