Green Beads with Reticella Decoration of the 8th Century BC in Italy – On the Type and Chemical Composition of an Unusual Form

Abstract

Green Beads with Reticella Decoration of the 8^th Century BC in Italy – On the Type and Chemical Composition of an Unusual Form
Glass beads of the earliest Iron Age in Italy have still not been systematically analysed. Here, two forms are presented, which, according to their common, green glass matrix obtained from copper, combined with a yellow-dark decoration, are unusual for the first half of the 1^st millennium BC. They date to the 8^th century BC and occur especially in Latium Vetus, but remain seldom. With a parallel on Rhodes, they seem to have been imported from the Aegean, yet, according to their similarity in the combination of trace elements with typical Italian Final Bronze Age beads of the LMHK glass group, a raw glass production and bead manufacture in Italy seem now to be imaginable.