This volume is the final report on the first and second century a.d. and thirteenth and fourteenth century Islamic glass excavated at Quseir al-Qadim on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The report not only describes the glass finds but also studies their distribution from the Red Sea to Arabia, East Africa, and India and raises some specific questions about the export of glassmaking technology and about the character of long-range trade in glass in both periods.

This volume represents a multi-disciplinary effort to examine East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean. Multiple lines of evidence drawn from linguistics, archaeology, history, art history, and ethnography come together in novel ways to highlight different aspects of the region’s past and offer innovative avenues for future research.

A rare look into the glass collection of the Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar, through the eyes of an ancient and medieval glass expert and aficionado. Imperfect Perfection summarises the material culture of glass from the time leading up to and during the Islamic Golden Age, providing insights into the artifacts, history and process of discovery. The glass is extravagantly photographed to reflect the intimacy of the objects.

New insights into the history of Islamic glassmaking The ancient glass industry changed dramatically towards the end of the first millennium. The Roman glassmaking tradition of mineral soda glass was increasingly supplanted by the use of plant ash as the main fluxing agent at the turn of the ninth century CE. Defining primary production groups of plant ash glass has been a challenge due to the high variability of raw materials and the smaller scale of production. Islamic Glass in the Making advocates a large-scale archaeometric approach to the history of Islamic glassmaking to trace the developments in the production, trade and consumption of vitreous materials between the eighth and twelfth centuries and to separate the norm from the exception. It proposes compositional discriminants to distinguish regional production groups, and provides insights into the organisation of the glass industry and commerce during the early Islamic period. The interdisciplinary approach leads to a holistic understanding of the development of Islamic glass; assemblages from the early Islamic period in Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Egypt, Greater Syria and Iberia are evaluated, and placed in the larger geopolitical context. In doing so, this book fills a gap in the present literature and advances a large-scale approach to the history of Islamic glass.

This book provides a comprehensive research on Ancient Indian glass. The contributors include experienced archaeologists of South Asian glass and archaeological chemists with expertise in the chemical analysis of glass, besides, established ethnohistorians and ethnoarchaeologists. It is comprised of five sections, and each section discusses different aspects of glass study: the origin of glass and its evolution, its scientific study and its care, ancient glass in literature and glass ethnography, glass in South Asia and the diffusion of glass in different parts of the world. The topic covered by the different chapters ranges from the development of faience, to the techniques developed for the manufacture of glass beads, glass bangles or glass mirrors at different times in south Asia, a major glass producing region and the regional distribution of key artefacts both within India and outside the region, in Africa, Europe or Southeast Asia. Some chapters also include extended examples of the archaeometry of ancient glasses. It makes an important contribution to archaeological, anthropological and analytical aspects of glass in South Asia. As such, it represents an invaluable resource for students through academic and industry researchers working in archaeological sciences, ancient knowledge system, pyrotechnology, historical archaeology, social archaeology and student of anthropology and history with an interest in glass and the archaeology of South Asia.

In this classic work George Hourani deals with the history of the sea trade of the Arabs in the Indian Ocean from its obscure origins many centuries before Christ to the time of its full extension to China and East Africa in the ninth and tenth centuries. The book comprises a brief but masterly historical account that has never been superseded. The author gives attention not only to geography, meteorology, and the details of travel, but also to the ships themselves, including a discussion of the origin of stitched planking and of the lateen fore-and-aft sails. Piracy in the Indian Ocean, day-to-day life at sea, the establishment of ancient lighthouses and the production of early maritime guides, handbooks, and port directories are all described in fascinating detail. Arab Seafaring will appeal to anyone interested in Arab life or the history of navigation. For this expanded edition, John Carswell has added a new introduction, a bibliography, and notes that add material from recent archaeological research.