End of Line? Glass Bangles, Technology, Recycling, and Trade in Islamic North Africa

This article presents a new approach to the archaeological and chemical evidence for glass in Africa, using the case study of 13th- to 19th-century Islamic glass bangles from the Libyan Sahara. The authors explore the technology of bangle production from a range of perspectives, beginning with a review of bangle making in its wider Asian and European context, and going on to discuss the ubiquitous but understudied Saharan glass bangle. The second half of the article provides new chemical data for 30 Islamic glass bangles from Fazzan, Libya, analyzed using EPMA and LA-ICP-MS. The discussion includes the dating of the bangles, evidence for their trade, and the possibility of secondary production practices, such as recycling and the addition of extra raw materials (e.g., potash and lead). The authors argue that, by focusing on secondary production and deliberate compositional manipulation of materials, as well as geological provenance, we are better equipped to use chemical analysis to reconstruct the long- and short-term meaning, manipulation, and trade of glasses in North and West Africa—an approach that may also be of value to those studying glass beads and other objects.