Peter Cosyns

• PhD Archaeology & Art Studies
• PostDoc Position at Ghent University

The scope of the paper concerns a review of one single glass item at the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), Antwerp which is known as the Alexander medallion. The authenticity of this intriguing large relief medallion in opaque turquoise blue glass has been an issue for some time but only recently an in-depth analysis of the piece and its ori- gin was per...

For many decades, the famous Aphrodite Sanctuary at Palaepaphos, Kouklia has been the area of various archaeological activities. Since 1973 the site has been investigated systematically by the Swiss-German Archaeological Mission, sponsored by the German Archaeological Institute and the University of Zürich, under the supervision of Franz Georg Maie...

The ancient glass collection is one of the hidden gems at the MAS (Antwerp, Belgium). It is part of a valuable glass collection numbering nearly 700 objects and is on a par with other international collections of glass. Now, for the first time, the subcollection of ancient glass is published in this comprehensive catalogue. The ancient glass collec...

Roman glass is studied here by means of optical absorption spectroscopy, in order to provide an objective method to quantitatively evaluate colour. The dataset is composed of 165 soda-lime silicate glass samples from various western European sites, mainly dated from the first to fourth century AD, and containing variable amounts of iron, manganese...

This paper presents the analysis of decoloured and naturally coloured glass from well-dated contexts in the southwest corner of the Roman fort at Oudenburg (Belgium) ranging from the late second to the early fifth century AD. The aim is three-fold. First, provide comparative material in the study of glass consumption from the northwestern provinces...

Earlier research has shown that several common late antique glass types circulate in Cyprus between the fifth and the seventh century AD, specifically Levantine 1, HLIMT, HIMTa, HIMTb and Egypt 1, HIT, Roman and a plant ash glass. By investigating the glass material from Yeroskipou-Agioi Pente, Maroni-Petrera, and Kalavasos-Kopetra, we aimed to ref...

This paper provides the preliminary results from an integrated study of the Hellenistic and early Roman glass vessel assemblage from the large domestic context at Paphos named the House of Orpheus. The homogeneous appearance of the omnipresent slumped and cast vessels in late Hellenistic and early Roman contexts within the entire Mediterranean make...

This paper presents the analysis of decoloured and naturally coloured glass from well-dated contexts in the southwest corner of the Roman fort at Oudenburg (Belgium) ranging from the late second to the early fifth century AD. The aim is three-fold. First, provide comparative material in the study of glass consumption from the northwestern provinces...

The current paper reviews a part of the so far unnoticed but rich glass collection at the ‘Museum aan de Stroom’ (MAS) in Antwerp encompassing objects from Roman times to the 20th century. We limit ourselves to highlight the story behind some of the prominent collections, which the museum accumulated during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The ke...

Capacity measurements of core-formed glass vessels and a comparative study of the volumes of the various vessel shapes prove a useful way to illuminate the production, distribution and use of core-formed glass containers in the Mediterranean world during the late Archaic to late Hellenistic period. Moreover, it can improve our knowledge of the conn...

Studies of glass production and consumption in the Late Bronze Age generally consider Egypt and Mesopotamia/Levant in relation to the Aegean world. Cyprus rarely enters the discussion, though this pivotal island discloses important finds not to be overlooked when examining Late Bronze Age glass consumption. The island was a highly dynamic hub withi...

This paper presents the LA-ICP-MS analysis results of 40 selected glass pieces from the early Christian basilica of Ayios Kononas in the Akamas area. The site enlarges our knowledge on the glass consumption pattern in Cyprus and demonstrates possible new insights on the connectivity of the island with the surrounding regions. The obtained data prov...

Van april 2006 tot en met juni 2007 voerde het VIOE (nu Onroerend Erfgoed) een preventief archeologisch onderzoek uit op het bedrijventerrein Menen-Oost-Uitbreiding. De opgravingen leverden vooral structuren en vondsten op van een kleine inheems-Romeinse nederzetting bestaande uit meerdere grachtensystemen, een aantal erven en een grafveld. Het bet...

In de jaren ’80-’90 van de vorige eeuw wordt de Roeselaarse haven uitgebreid in oostelijke richting. Men legt ondermeer de Zwaaikom en het achterliggende industrieterrein langs de Kachtemsestraat en Zwaaikomstraat aan. Vrijwilligers van V.O.B.o.W. en de Werkgroep Archeologie Roeselare verrichtten er onder leiding van Jozef Goderis en Johan Termote...

The research on the use of obsidian in the Mediterranean is extensive but concerns almost exclusively volcanic glass from prehistoric and Bronze Age contexts. The consumption of obsidian during the Roman imperial period, however, has only occasionally received attention. Never a comprehensive account on what the Romans made in vitrum obsianum has b...

This paper discusses the composition of the vessel and window glass from three Late Antique Cypriot sites: Yeroskipou, Maroni-Petrera and Kalavasos-Kopetra. Over 170 glass fragments were sampled for quantitative chemical analysis through EPMA measurements. The aim of this work is to establish new insights on the chemical compositions of the glass f...

The poster suggests a new dating for the building of the Roman Tempel in Atuatuca Tungrorum (Tongeren, Belgium). This study is mainly based on pottery study that demonstrates that the building of the temple can’t occur before the first quarter of the 2d century AD.

We studied the Fe K-edge X-ray absorption near edge (XANES) spectra of several Roman black glass fragments in order to determine the Fe3+/ΕFe ratio of these materials. The selected archaeological glass samples cover the period 1st-5th century AD in nine different sites of the North Western provinces of the Roman Empire. The fragments belong to two...

Un verre méditerranéen pour la production de bracelets laténienne en Europe septentrionale. Résultats d’analyses SEM-EDX et LA-ICP-MS de bracelets en verre La Tène tardif de Odijk, Tiel et Geldermalseren-Hondsgemet http://afaverre.fr/Afaverre/publications/bulletins-a-f-a-verre/bulletin-afav-2014/

part of paper on the Open Journal of Archaeometry

part of paper on the Open Journal of Archaeometry

Jewels and tableware made of black-appearing glass were popular in the Roman Empire. Compositional changes (due to modifications in glassmaking technology and use of raw materials) over the period considered (1 st-5 th century AD) have been investigated on a large number of samples originating from various archaeological excavations in Europe, Nort...

Archaeometric research on glass artefacts is continuously evolving and is converging towards a multidisciplinary research domain where different types of techniques are applied depending on the questions asked and the circumstances involved. The technique described in this work is optical spectroscopy. The benefit of this technique being the possib...

Black glass represented a fraction of the whole Roman glass production and its use enjoyed a changing popularity all through the Roman Imperial era and mainly consisted of two types of artifacts: vessels and jewels. In this chapter this segment of Roman glass is used in order to elucidate the global chronology and the geographical origin of glass i...

Résumé: La villa gallo-romaine de Neuville «Les Machenées» en province de Namur a été partiellement fouillée de 1988 à 1991. La cave a livré un matériel varié (monnaies, céramique, verre, bronze, fer, terres cuites architecturales, meules, pierres à aiguiser…) dont le marquage comportait encore des indications stratigraphiques précises et a donc p...

LA-ICP-MS is a well acquainted technique for the quantification of a wide range of minor and trace elements present in the glass matrix. The benefit to understand the changes in technological processes or the added value in assessing the provenance and chronology of the raw glass material is however rarely discussed. By selecting a set of 197 Roman...

Optical spectroscopy allows the identification of ionic species and, under certain conditions, the quantification of Fe 2+ and Fe 3+ . The ratio of the oxidation states of iron gives an insight into the technological aspects of production. Moreover from the transmission spectra it is possible to calculate the CIE Lab colour coordinates and the UV a...

Raman spectroscopy is presented as a suitable and fast non-destructive technique to obtain qualitative information about glass samples of various origins (ancient and modern/industrial glass). A first application is the broad corpus of archaeological window glass that still needs to be investigated. For many sites, archaeologists have to deal with...

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the potential usefulness of optical spectroscopy within the archaeological discourse. We therefore use the standardized color coordinates and the transmittance spectra in the region between 350- 1650 nm of nine fragmented Roman black glass artifacts from archaeological contexts in Avenches (Switzerland)...

Absorption spectroscopy is the technique that measures the absorption of radiation as a function of wavelength, due to its interaction with the material. During a research project funded by our home university, we were able to investigate the possibilities of this technique to study ancient glasses. One of our main conclusions is that UV-VIS-NIR ab...

Arcaheopedology, plaggen soils

Raman spectroscopy has been used to identify iron-containing glasses. This nondestructive technique offers a fast method to obtain qualitative information about the presence of iron oxides in glass. The effect of the iron content in glass samples is reflected on the topology of the Raman spectra: A strong link between the ratio of the Q2/Q3 vibrati...

In this publication optical spectroscopy is considered to be a supplementary technique to study ancient colored glass. It results from a systematic study of the UV-VIS-NIR transmission spectra of intentionally colored glass fragments from various archaeological and historical sites and dated from the Roman period to the 21th century AD. The main go...

La vaisselle en vitrum obsianum est bien connue dans les grandes collections du monde entier. Certes, le vitrum obsianum présente certaines incertitudes du point de vue de sa production et cela déjà depuis Pline l’Ancien qui dans son Histoire Naturelle (livre XXXVI, 196-197) décrit que la vaisselle en obsidienne, un verre volcanique, est imitée en...

In this work we attempt to elucidate the chronological and geographical origin of deeply coloured and black glass dating between 100 bc and ad 300 on the basis of their major and trace element compositions. Samples from the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire were analysed. Analytical data were obtained by means of a scanning electron mic...

This article focuses on a remarkable well structure that was brought to light by the Flemish Heritage Institute during recent archaeological research at the south-western corner of the Saxon Shore fort at Oudenburg (2001-2005). The site of Oudenburg is situated 8 km from the Flemish coastline, in the polder area between Bruges and Ostend. During Ro...

Refuse Collection or Worship Context ? Study of the Archaeological Material and of the Fauna Remnants of a Large Pit (S 082) of the Tirlemont Vicus (Tienen, Belgium) The excavation works carried out from 1997 to 2002 by the Institut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium on the Grijpenveld plot have considerably enriched our knowledge on the periphera...

The excavation works carried out from 1997 to 2002 by the Institut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium on the Grijpenveld plot have considerably enriched our knowledge on the peripheral areas of the Gallo-Roman vici. The works brought to light a district with a handicraft, funerary and religious vocation. Among the many dug-in structures excavated o...