Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Compositional observations for Islamic Glass from Sīrāf, Iran, in the Corning Museum of Glass collection Carolyn M. Swan a,⁎ , Thilo Rehren b,e , James Lankton a , Bernard Gratuze c , Robert H. Brill d a UCL Qatar, Doha, Qatar b College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar c Institut de Recherche sur les ArchéoMATériaux (IRAMAT), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université d'Orléans, Orléans, France d Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, United States e UCL Institute of Archaeology, London, United Kingdom ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Sīrāf, Siraf Iran Gulf Islamic glass Bangles Indian Ocean trade LA-ICPMS Zirconium Chromium Manganese High alumina ABSTRACT The medieval port city of Sīrāf (ca. 800–1050 CE) on the north coast of the Persian/Arabian Gulf linked the core lands of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate with India, China, Africa, and beyond. 101 glass fragments recovered from the 1966–1973 excavations at Sīrāf and now at the Corning Museum of Glass were analysed using LA-ICPMS in order to explore the glassmaking raw materials and technology of the objects found within the city, as well as to address issues of the production and trade of glass during the Islamic period. The results indicate that the main groups of glass at Sīrāf likely date to the 9th–early 11th centuries and can be subdivided by the trace elements zirconium and chromium. Chemical matches with some likely Indian glass, and with glass finds from South and Southeast Asia, underline the pivotal role of the Gulf in the eastward movement of Islamic glass via the Indian Ocean trade network, as well as the influx of Indian glass into the Islamic world. Glass bangles and a small number of vessel fragments likely date to the late 11th century or later, and their chemical compositions indicate different production origins. 1. Introduction Sīrāf is one of the largest archaeological sites on the coast of Iran. Archaeological and literary sources agree that the city was a very wealthy port during the early medieval era, ca. 800–1050 CE. It served as an active commercial hub involved in the movement of goods be- tween the ‘Abbāsid lands of Iraq and Iran and the wider world of the Indian Ocean trading network: India, Southeast Asia, China, East Africa, and the Red Sea. Sīrāf occupied a strategic position on the northeastern coast of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, being located approximately halfway between the rivers of Mesopotamia and the Strait of Hormuz leading to the Indian Ocean (Fig. 1). Medieval geographers comment that Sīrāf was an extremely prosperous port during the 9th–10th centuries: ac- cording to the mid-10th century writer Iṣṭakhrī,Sīrāfi merchants amassed huge fortunes and lived in sumptuous multi-storeyed houses paid for by the trade of luxury goods including pearls, gems, ivory, ebony, and spices (Whitehouse, 1968: 3; Whitehouse, 1970b: 142). Seven seasons of archaeological excavation took place at Sīrāf from 1966 to 1973, conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies under the direction of David Whitehouse. Research findings related to these excavations have been published in a series of interim reports (Whitehouse, 1968, 1969, 1970a, 1971a, 1972, 1974), in monographs on the major areas of excavation (Whitehouse, 1980, 2009) and some of the material evidence (e.g. Lowick, 1985; Tampoe, 1989; Pashazanous et al., 2014; Wood and Priestman, 2016), as well as in a conference proceedings (Tabadar and Mashayekhi, 2005). The glass artefacts and other finds excavated at Sīrāf are currently stored in the British Mu- seum, and a study of this material has reportedly been underway since 2007 (Priestman, forthcoming). The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, has just over 100 fragments of glass from Sīrāf that were at one time in the personal research collections of Robert Brill and David Whitehouse. This paper presents an exploratory examination of the Sīrāf glass in the Corning Museum of Glass by LA-ICPMS in order to expand the corpus of data available for Islamic glass in general, but more specifically to in- vestigate and characterize the types of glass used at Sīrāf in light of the city's economic and geographic significance during the early Islamic period (ca. 9th–11th centuries CE). 1.1. The site of Sīrāf The archaeological remains of medieval Sīrāf (modern Taheri) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.08.020 Received 16 May 2017; Received in revised form 29 August 2017; Accepted 31 August 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: c.swan@ucl.ac.uk (C.M. Swan). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 16 (2017) 102–116 2352-409X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK