Gaál Attila (szerk.): A Wosinszky Mór Múzeum Évkönyve 23. (Szekszárd, 2001)

Fórizs István–Pásztor Adrienn–Nagy Géza–Tóth Mária: Avar és szarmata gyöngyök Csongrád megyéből

Although it might be that the Late-Antique glass-making workshops along the Black Sea and in Southern Russia continued to work in the Avar Period (6

th-7

th century) as well

23

, and their product got to the Carpathian Basin by trading, but for lack of data about the chemical composition of their products or the technology they used, the authors can neither support nor discard this hypothesis. Above we saw that both the opaque red and white beads were opacified by different materials in the Sarmatian and the Avar Period in the Carpathian Basin. This observation implies that a technological change happened sometimes between the Sarmatian and Avar Periods. Although the earliest tin-opacified glasses appeared in the Celtic Europe in the 2

nd-1

st century BC

24

, the Europe-wide change from antimony to tin opacification happened in the 2

nd-5

th centuries AD

25

. Regarding the Carpathian Basin, according to the above results, this change happened between the Sarmatian and Avar Periods, most probably in the 5

th century AD. The technological change related to the opaque red glasses in the Carpathian Basin probably happened a little bit earlier then in the case of opaque white glasses. The Late Sarmatians (4

th century AD) in SzegvárOromdűlő only opacified the opaque red glasses by copper, while those made in the Avar Period (6

th-7

th century) were opacified by the combination of iron and copper. Flórián and Zimmer

26 reported 1.7-6.6% Fecontent of opaque red glasses found in Vandal(?) (3

rd-4

th century AD) cemetery in Budapest. This amount of iron is so much that it can not be natural contamination, so the iron was intentionally added to the glass batch, and it means that these opaque red glasses were opacified by the combination of iron and copper. In the (3

rd-)4

th century AD for making opaque red glasses different technology was applied by Vandals(?) and by Sarmatians, so likely this technological change happened at different time among peoples living in the Carpathian Basin. As an example for the surviving of Late-Antique glass-making workshops see PREDA 1980. HENDERSON 1985, p. 286. HENDERSON 1985, p. 286. FLÓRIÁN - ZIMMER 1982. 82