Bernard Gratuze

French National Centre for Scientific Research / Orléans University · IRAMAT Centre Ernest-Babelon

The analysis of 107 obsidian samples collected in the course of the archaeological investigations carried out from 2009 to 2019 by the Georgian-Italian expeditions in Eastern Georgia in the provinces of Shida Kartli (Natsargora, Aradetis Orgora and Okherakhevi) and Kakheti (Tsiteli Gorebi 5) allowed us to confirm the existence of two contrasting ob...

This paper discusses the process, prospects, and challenges of making bikini glass in Bida (Nupeland), central Nigeria. The Masagá glassmakers of Bida provide the ideal case study for investigating the production of bikini. Nineteenth-century Arab and European writings have described glassmaking in Nupeland; however, with the exception of the study...

Our recent LA-ICP-MS analyses of glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck along with additional samples from Egyptian sites, primarily Amarna, encourage us to question how and where the ingots were produced. Because almost all the approximately 200 glass ingots are either greenish blue, colored by copper, or purplish blue, colored by cobalt, we foc...

The Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus built between about 706 and 714/15 CE is the oldest surviving mosque that still preserves large parts of its original architecture and decoration. The origins of the mosaic tesserae have been the subject of debate for more than a thousand years. The earliest sources written two centuries after the construction o...

Xicotó Rockshelter (Alòs de Balaguer, Lleida, Spain) is located in the eastern Pre-Pyrenean range in north-east Iberia, in the middle Segre River Basin. Since 2013, archaeological works have been developed by a team from the Prehistoric Studies and Research Seminar (SERP) at the University of Barcelona and up to three sedimentary levels have been i...

The composition of archaeological glass reflects the geochemical nature of its raw materials. To determine the origins and distribution of early Islamic glasses from Iran, a set of 169 glass samples from five different sites was analysed by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) of 58 elements. The glasses were clas...

The reconstruction of the trade routes along which garnets reached Europe in the early Middle Ages demonstrates the persistence of long-distance trade after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Early medieval garnet jewellery from Italy and the presence of lapidary workshops are important evidence for understanding the dynamics of this commerce bu...

Bien que le développement du cristal au plomb constitue une étape majeure dans l’histoire du verre à la fin du XVIIe siècle, la présence de plomb dans des matrices vitreuses (verres et glaçures) est beaucoup plus ancienne, son usage date du second millénaire avant notre ère.Le plomb dans les matériaux vitreux du patrimoine retrace l’histoire de ces...

The glass ingots from the Late Bronze Age Uluburun shipwreck (ca. 1300 BCE) provide crucial insight into Late Bronze Age glass production and exchange in the Mediterranean. Almost all of the approximately 200 glass ingots on board the ship were sampled as well as five of the 30 Mycenaean glass relief beads. Here we report the full chemical composit...

Portuguese archaeological excavations dated to the 17th century onwards are extremely rich in glass artefacts, with this being a reality from the north to the south of the territory. Contrasting with this reality, no glass production locations from this period have been discovered or excavated so far, which makes the provenance attribution a challe...

This contribution presents the first comprehensive survey of the protohistoric glasses found on the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni Vicentini in the sites of Monte Corgnon (Lusiana) and Bostel (Rotzo) during the excavations directed by Armando De Guio. Starting from the history of the studies, the work offers insights into the typo-chronology, stratigra...

Excavations in the Roman villa of Aiano yielded twenty glass beads, a pendant, and a glass-recycling furnace, originally interpreted as a bead workshop. This article reassesses the evidence of bead making in light of new data obtained thanks to recent progress in archaeological glass studies. A detailed study of the typology, technology, and chemic...

This paper aims to apprehend evolution of ceramic manufacture strategy in the Johnston‐Vieillard manufactory (Bordeaux, France), which produced white earthenwares between 1835 and 1895. Glazes of fragments of seventy‐six sherds, dated from different periods of the 19th century and found in excavations were characterised thanks to combined chemical...

Istria and the Kvarner archipelago are strategically located on the main maritime trade routes connecting the eastern Mediterranean with the western provinces of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique period, and with Carolingian Europe in the ninth century. Ecclesiastical and monastic institutions played a significant role in the establishment a...

The factors and dynamics that initiated the Neolithisation process in the South Caucasus between the very end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th millennium BCE are still unclear and hotly debated. It is within this framework that the excavations at Kiçik Tepe, in the middle Kura river valley of Western Azerbaijan, aim to offer new data and new...

The production of natron glass started at the beginning of the first millennium BCE and prevailed in the Mediterranean world for almost two thousand years. This production seems to cease progressively from the end of the eighth century CE onwards, with a different timing based on the region (e.g. Syria, Egypt). A recent study of Islamic glass weigh...

In recent years, chemical analyses of glass beads excavated from late Antique and Early Middle Age sites in western and north-western Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and Sweden) have revealed for the first time the presence of two groups of glass beads with unexpected compositions for these periods and geographic areas. The f...

The multi-method study of a Pyrenean lithological tracer, the Montgaillard-Montsaunès chert type, is presented in this paper. These cherts outcrop in the northern Pyrenees, in three outcrops belonging to two Upper Cretaceous formations: the marly flysch cherts from the Campanian-Maastrichtian (Buala and Montsaunès outcrops) and the grey flysch cher...

Recent archaeological research has highlighted the potential role of mobile pastoral groups in the diffusion of raw materials and technological innovations between the Southern Caucasus and North‐western Iran from the Neolithic onwards. Two successive projects, PAST‐OBS and SCOPE, were designed to explore this hypothesis through the study of obsidi...

The recently discovered Nalai site is one of the Bose Basin localities, which is key to studying the earliest bifaces in China. The Nalai site has yielded an abundance of lithic artifacts, including bifaces and tektites in close association. The total fusion 40Ar/39Ar method was applied to four tektites discovered beside and contemporaneous with bi...

The Fuente del Trucho Cave (Asque‐Colungo, Huesca, Spain) is located in the central Pre‐Pyrenean range in NE Iberia, in the Arpán ravine, a tributary of the Vero River. The mouth of the cave is 22 m wide and it is oriented to the SE. The entrance gives access to a 24 m deep hall. Palaeolithic paintings were discovered in the cave in 1978. The Fuent...

This article gives the results of the analyses made by several specialists on some of the raw materials (metal, obsidian and semi-precious stones) found at Mentesh Tepe (Middle Kura Valley, Azerbaijan) during the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age periods. They show that the procurement zone extends between 30 to 300 km away from the site. The...

Located on the plateau of Larzac, the site of Soulages testifies, for the first time in a low mountain area, a rural settlement which expand from the 6th to the 9th century. The remains are organised in an area that groups together all living quarters, mixed with the burials of the inhabitants. Within this area, the buildings are divided by activit...

Most of the artifacts were found in secondary position in the excavation backdirt. The number and weight of all the pieces were recorded in a database coupled with a GIS permitting each researcher to orient their analysis. The residence yielded 476 kg of amphoras sherds, representing at least 422 recipients [fig. 174]. The distribution and nature o...

El yacimiento de Soulages, situado en la meseta calcárea del Larzac, ilustra, por primera vez en este sector de media montaña, una ocupación rural que se desarrolla entre los siglos VI y IX. Los restos se organizan en un espacio que agrupa el conjunto de los lugares de vida, mezclados con las sepulturas de los habitantes. En el seno de este espacio...

Zusammenfassung: Die auf der Hochebene Causse du Larzac gelegene Siedlung von Soulages liefert ein bislang unbekanntes Beispiel für eine ländliche Ansiedlung in mittlerer Höhenlage, die sich zwischen dem 6. und 9. Jahrhundert n. Chr. entwickelte. Die Hinterlassenschaften umfassen den gesamten Siedlungsbereich, sowie Gräber der Bewohner. Innerhalb d...

The presence of glass beads in West African archaeological sites provides important evidence of long-distance trade between this part of the continent and the rest of the world. Until recently, most of these items came from historical Sub-Saharan urban centers, well known for their role in the medieval trans-Saharan trade. We present here the chemi...

Handheld (portable) X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) allows for fast, in situ surface analysis, however, its application in archaeological research requires substantial optimisation. This paper investigates the matrix effects of high lead glass on the experimental results of pXRF in comparison to laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass...

The cave of Getahovit-2 is situated in north-eastern Armenia, in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus which dominate the valley of the Kura. The excavations (2011–2017), carried out by the Armenian-French mission ‘Caucasus’, have revealed several phases of occupation – Upper Palaeolithic (ca 22,000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 4700-4050 cal BC), and...

The materials, painting techniques and conservation state of the enamelled stain glass of the Catalan Modernist workshops operating in Barcelona are studied. It is known for its creativity and artistic value where textured, flashed, coloured and enamelled glasses concur. In the late 19th century, Catalan workshops used a new type of ready-to-be-use...

This paper presents use of the Depth Profile mode coupled with LA-ICP-MS for analysing ancient gold coins. It explains how this mode can improve the characterisation of coins for the following difficult analytical problems: surface gold enrichment, low fineness gold alloys, localised enrichments in platinum and palladium and inclusions of platinum...

The paper summarizes the archaeometric investigations performed on the glass beads and vessels discovered in tomb nr. 9 of Nora cemetery. We discuss the forming techniques, the raw materials used and the provenance of the base glass. LA-ICP-MS data showed that the 26 samples analyzed are natron glasses. The opacifiers and colorants used in the prod...

Migration-period glass beads from Italy are an overlooked source of evidence. This investigation discusses the provenance, economic value and social significance of glass beads from the cemetery of Campo Marchione, northern Italy (c.570 to the end of the seventh century AD). The different chemical compositions and specific forming technologies have...

Caune de Belvis (Aude, France) is located in the northern slopes of the eastern Pyrenees, in south-east France. Excavations at the site during the final decades of the past century identified several human occupations from the Late Mousterian (Maroto et al. 2003) and the Magdalenian periods (Sacchi 1993). The archaeological remains are mostly compo...

The Chaves cave (Huesca, Spain) is located in the central Pre‐Pyrenean range in NE Iberia. It is a huge cave opening to the east, which was systematically excavated between 1975 and 2007. Several human occupations from the Upper Palaeolithic and the Neolithic periods were documented. Archaeological investigations had barely covered a tenth of the t...

Combining a stylistic approach with chemical analyses and focusing not only on composition but also on production technology, this research aims to identify possible centres of post-medieval production of glass as well as decorative production techniques used in stained glass, in particular the grisaille. The use of several combined analytical tech...

The cave of Getahovit-2 is situated in north-eastern Armenia, in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus which dominate the valley of the Kura. The excavations (2011–2017), carried out by the Armenian-French mission ‘Caucasus’, have revealed several phases of occupation – Upper Palaeolithic (ca 22,000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 4700-4050 cal BC), and...

Actes du XIe congrès international de la Société d’archéologie médiévale, moderne et contemporaine (Bayeux, 28-30 mai 2015)

Actes du 8e colloque international de l'AFAV tenu à Besançon (déc. 2016)

Actes du 8e colloque international de l'AFAV, tenu à Besançon en décembre 2016

The West Mound of Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq, dated to c. 7100/7000 to 6700/6600 BCE, in the northeast region of Iranian Plateau, is one of the earliest known Neolithic villages east of Zagros Mountain that provides evidence of round-year occupation with mud brick architecture. Provenience studies have been conducted on seven pieces of obsidian artefac...