Papers by Victoria Sainsbury
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This note, provided as an interim and summary report on research made possible by the Rakow Grant... more This note, provided as an interim and summary report on research made possible by the Rakow Grant for Glass Research, is an indication of what can be achieved from the synthesis of a large amount of geographically recorded glass data. Specifically, it focuses on changing patterns in antimony in colorless glass in Britain between the third and fourth centuries. The assumption is that antimony falls out of use in the third century, and this can be used to track Britain’s access to fresh glass and the glass trade
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Things that Travelled
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Archaeometry
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A conference report of the Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium in Oxford, part-funded by... more A conference report of the Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium in Oxford, part-funded by the MSRG
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Archaeometry, 2020
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Medieval Archaeology, 2016
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Scientific Reports, 2020
Anyang, the last capital of the Chinese Shang dynasty, became one of the largest metal consumers ... more Anyang, the last capital of the Chinese Shang dynasty, became one of the largest metal consumers in Eurasia during the second millennium BCE. However, it remains unclear how Anyang people managed to sustain such a large supply of metal. By considering the chemical analysis of bronze objects within archaeological contexts, this paper shows that the casting and circulation of metal at Anyang was effectively governed by social hierarchy. Objects belonging to the high elites such as Fuhao, particularly the bronze ritual vessels, were made by carefully controlled alloying practice (primary) using very pure copper, whereas the lower elites only had access to bronzes made by secondary alloying practice and copper with more impurities. Such contrasts allow scholars to identify those objects which are less likely to have been made by mixing and recycling, which has very important implications for the chemical and isotopic determination of provenance for future studies.
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Antiquity
Abstract Mutability—the ability to change form and substance—is a key feature of glass and metals... more Abstract Mutability—the ability to change form and substance—is a key feature of glass and metals. This quality, however, has proven frustrating for archaeological and archaeometric research. This article assesses the typological, chemical and theoretical elements of material reuse and recycling, reframing these practices as an opportunity to understand past behaviour, rather than as an obstacle to understanding. Using diverse archaeological data, the authors present case studies to illustrate the potential for documenting mutability in the past, and to demonstrate what this can reveal about the movement, social context and meaning of archaeological material culture. They hope that through such examples archaeologists will consider and integrate mutability as a formative part of chaînes opératoires.
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Archaeometry, 2020
This paper discusses the reorganisation of archaeometallurgical legacy data for future research. ... more This paper discusses the reorganisation of archaeometallurgical legacy data for future research. When archaeometallurgical research aims to answer questions that involve significant movements of raw material or metal objects, it needs to rely on large sets of data. These data are available but scattered across hundreds publications, where they are differently organised, based on the focus of the original papers. The FLAME-D database aims to collect this corpus of data and include it in a versatile structure that also maintains the information about the original data organization. The production of such a database requires transparent data transformations. The database is complemented by a series of online tools that make data available to answer new questions.
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Scientific Reports, 2020
Anyang, the last capital of the Chinese Shang dynasty, became one of the largest metal consumers ... more Anyang, the last capital of the Chinese Shang dynasty, became one of the largest metal consumers in Eurasia during the second millennium BCE. However, it remains unclear how Anyang people managed to sustain such a large supply of metal. By considering the chemical analysis of bronze objects within archaeological contexts, this paper shows that the casting and circulation of metal at Anyang was effectively governed by social hierarchy. Objects belonging to the high elites such as Fuhao, particularly the bronze ritual vessels, were made by carefully controlled alloying practice (primary) using very pure copper, whereas the lower elites only had access to bronzes made by secondary alloying practice and copper with more impurities. Such contrasts allow scholars to identify those objects which are less likely to have been made by mixing and recycling, which has very important implications for the chemical and isotopic determination of provenance for future studies. Metal is one of the earliest fully reusable materials discovered by human beings. Unlike other natural materials, such as stone (e.g., marble or jade), it can, in theory, be infinitely recycled 1. Considering the comparative rarity of metal deposits on earth, this recyclability gives metal not just the acknowledged technological or functional engineering advantages, but also an extra dimension of economic, social, cultural and ritual significance 2. For example, the rise of the Scandinavian Bronze Age was partially dependent on the recycling of imported objects in order to sustain the production of those objects in locally favoured shapes and styles 3. Indigenous sources of metal were scarce, and so such imported objects were exploited as a source of raw material. In contrast, elite swords, which are commonly considered to be objects with high functional and symbolic value in broader Bronze Age Europe, contained very little recycled metal 4. In later periods, where more textual information is available alongside the archaeological and archaeometric data, one can gain much more specific knowledge about the spiritual and religious power of the objects and how recycling can affect such powers 5. Does the recycling of metals, which has been commonly encountered in many parts of Bronze Age Eurasia, also occur in China? If so, what social factors could affect recycling in China? In its early dynasties (Shang and Zhou, ca. 1600-221 BCE), large numbers of extraordinary bronze vessels were produced. They were employed in banqueting, offering food and drink for ancestor worship, signalling social status and materializing ritual activities 6-9. A great deal of precious raw materials, including copper, tin and lead, were devoted to the production of these vessels, which were then deposited in the tombs of elite persons 8. Crucially, many of these bronzes were cast with inscriptions, allowing them to be associated with specific elite individuals or lineages 10. This also indicates that craftspeople were well aware of for whom these bronzes were being made. From a broader perspective, the preference for making bronze ritual vessels is a phenomenon unique to China. In many other parts of Bronze Age Eurasia, the most typical bronze products were weapons, tools and personal ornaments 11. The broader issue is what strategy was implemented to ensure the sustainable supply needed to maintain metal production in Bronze Age Shang China (ca. 1600-1045 BCE), the first Chinese dynasty which shows overwhelming archaeological and textual evidence that huge quantities of metal were removed from the contemporary metal circulation and deposited in tombs? So far, the study of recycling in China is limited by the lack of contemporary written records.
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At the extreme northwestern edge of the Roman empire, Britain's glass industry in the first half ... more At the extreme northwestern edge of the Roman empire, Britain's glass industry in the first half of the first millennium CE is strongly linked with its membership as a province, most raw glass being of eastern Mediterranean origin. However, the withdrawal of Roman occupation from Britain does not lead to the end of glass trade or production. Glass persisted in well past 410 CE, with new indigenous forms of both vessels and beads appearing. The assumption is that this post-Roman production relied upon a perpetually recycled store of cullet that, for the most part, was brought to Britain during its time as a member of the Roman empire. By collating a published database of over 2,000 British glasses, dating from the first to seventh centuries CE, an attempt was made to understand how true this assumption was, as well as considering what this recycling actually meant for Britain both during and after the Roman Period. In particular, this chapter considers a subset of glasses from the first to fifth centuries CE and the relationship between trace concentrations of common glass additives, resultant from anthropogenic mixing, and geographic location, to highlight both areas of stagnation and fresh glass trade in the third to fifth centuries CE.
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A conference report of the Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium in Oxford, part-funded by... more A conference report of the Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium in Oxford, part-funded by the MSRG
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Sainsbury, V. A. (2017). Geography of Antimony in Roman and Early Medieval Colorless Glass. Journ... more Sainsbury, V. A. (2017). Geography of Antimony in Roman and Early Medieval Colorless Glass. Journal of Glass Studies, 59, 387-392.
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This paper is an exploration of the composition of 232 examples of me- dieval copper latten, spec... more This paper is an exploration of the composition of 232 examples of me- dieval copper latten, specifically metal sourced from English monumental brasses collected during restoration by Mister William Lock. Monumental brasses were a common funerary memorial in the Middle Ages, an evo- lution from incised stone slabs. This study analysed the percentage of iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, arsenic, antimony, tin, silver and lead in samples of monumental brass. By comparing patterns across time and across different workshops of manufacture, this paper has tried to asses the relationship between these two factors and the source of the latten. The source of copper alloys in England is complicated by internal politics, external wars and shortages of raw materials.
There are expected trends in the composition of medieval latten over time and, due to the small sample size in this present study, this overshadows any workshop patterns. In the course of this analysis it was apparent that several examples showed a non-standard composition, which requires an explanation. One explanation relates to the development of poor qual- ity English copper, but given variations in antimony verses silver, a more appropriate answer is probably that of recycling. Particularly in the fif- teenth and sixteenth centuries, when copper-alloys were at a premium in England, there seems to be the increased use of recycled material.
The second part of this paper compared these results to previously pub- lished analyses achieved for other medieval copper-alloy artefacts. Despite the limitations of using legacy data, it is apparent that some variations are unique to these English monumental brasses, rather than evidence of universal technological change. However, given the small dataset, it is not currently possible to identify specific relationships between workshops and latten sources.
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Posters by Victoria Sainsbury
While recycling was an important part of industry during the Roman Period, after the imaginary li... more While recycling was an important part of industry during the Roman Period, after the imaginary line of AD 410 any sort of reuse is too easily seen as merely scavenging and evidence of a failing society. While an increasing body of work highlights that an instant ‘fall’ of Roman Britain is simply incorrect, similarly recycling must be considered in a more nuanced way. It is not just a single practice but many practices of reuse, repair and remelting, driven by a multitude of factors: social, economic and political Recycling can be a last ditch effort to eek out the last of a dying material, an empowering process that frees artisans from the control of those with access to the raw materials, or a way to honor or connect with past owners.
Due to its innate mutability but limited potential geological origins, glass is the perfect material for such discussions. Particularly in terms of artifacts that have been remelted, identifying and understanding recycling can be particularly problematic. In this preliminary survey, an archaeometric approach has been taken. Previous chemical analyses of British glasses are considered for likely markers of recycling. These are then considered as proportions of an assemblage that are ‘likely recycled’ material from Roman period, compared to early Medieval ones. The eventual aim of this work is to address the question of whether the source of medieval glass was ‘a gradually diminishing and degrading reservoir of cullet, ultimately derived from the prodigious industries of the 1st to 4th centuries’.
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Many compositional studies of archaeological glass are frustrated by the well- acknowledged pract... more Many compositional studies of archaeological glass are frustrated by the well- acknowledged practice of recycling. However, the recycling of glass is not necessarily an obstacle but may also be seen as an opportunity for archaeologists and archaeological scientists alike. Recycled glass is an important source of new material, with social and industrial ramifications. Recycling is not a single practice, but a broad range of different behaviours of reusing, repairing and remelting, each of which has important implications for the significance of glass as a material, trade, as well as the resultant artifacts’ place in a social world. It can be a matter of cost, availability, or, particularly in the case of reuse, more complex social ideas, and different forms of recycling will cause different chemical changes to the resultant glass.
In no small part due to both archaeometric analyses and shipwreck excavations, the extensive trade of glass ingots across the Mediterranean in the Roman Period is well known, as is the contemporaneous trade in glass cullet. However, the implications of such recycling are often dismissed in discussions of glass composition and trade. By separating out the different forms of recycling and understanding their likely compositional affects, glasses that are likely to have been recycled can be more easily identified. Using a legacy data approach to look at broad compositional trends, particularly the use of colourants and decolourants, proportions of recycled glass in specific assemblages can begin to be discussed, which feeds into larger discussions of glass trade.
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Papers: Britain by Victoria Sainsbury
An art-historical and metallurgical discussion of an early medieval polychrome-enamelled brooch f... more An art-historical and metallurgical discussion of an early medieval polychrome-enamelled brooch from Lincoln (UK), and its wider implications.
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Papers by Victoria Sainsbury
There are expected trends in the composition of medieval latten over time and, due to the small sample size in this present study, this overshadows any workshop patterns. In the course of this analysis it was apparent that several examples showed a non-standard composition, which requires an explanation. One explanation relates to the development of poor qual- ity English copper, but given variations in antimony verses silver, a more appropriate answer is probably that of recycling. Particularly in the fif- teenth and sixteenth centuries, when copper-alloys were at a premium in England, there seems to be the increased use of recycled material.
The second part of this paper compared these results to previously pub- lished analyses achieved for other medieval copper-alloy artefacts. Despite the limitations of using legacy data, it is apparent that some variations are unique to these English monumental brasses, rather than evidence of universal technological change. However, given the small dataset, it is not currently possible to identify specific relationships between workshops and latten sources.
Posters by Victoria Sainsbury
Due to its innate mutability but limited potential geological origins, glass is the perfect material for such discussions. Particularly in terms of artifacts that have been remelted, identifying and understanding recycling can be particularly problematic. In this preliminary survey, an archaeometric approach has been taken. Previous chemical analyses of British glasses are considered for likely markers of recycling. These are then considered as proportions of an assemblage that are ‘likely recycled’ material from Roman period, compared to early Medieval ones. The eventual aim of this work is to address the question of whether the source of medieval glass was ‘a gradually diminishing and degrading reservoir of cullet, ultimately derived from the prodigious industries of the 1st to 4th centuries’.
In no small part due to both archaeometric analyses and shipwreck excavations, the extensive trade of glass ingots across the Mediterranean in the Roman Period is well known, as is the contemporaneous trade in glass cullet. However, the implications of such recycling are often dismissed in discussions of glass composition and trade. By separating out the different forms of recycling and understanding their likely compositional affects, glasses that are likely to have been recycled can be more easily identified. Using a legacy data approach to look at broad compositional trends, particularly the use of colourants and decolourants, proportions of recycled glass in specific assemblages can begin to be discussed, which feeds into larger discussions of glass trade.
Papers: Britain by Victoria Sainsbury
There are expected trends in the composition of medieval latten over time and, due to the small sample size in this present study, this overshadows any workshop patterns. In the course of this analysis it was apparent that several examples showed a non-standard composition, which requires an explanation. One explanation relates to the development of poor qual- ity English copper, but given variations in antimony verses silver, a more appropriate answer is probably that of recycling. Particularly in the fif- teenth and sixteenth centuries, when copper-alloys were at a premium in England, there seems to be the increased use of recycled material.
The second part of this paper compared these results to previously pub- lished analyses achieved for other medieval copper-alloy artefacts. Despite the limitations of using legacy data, it is apparent that some variations are unique to these English monumental brasses, rather than evidence of universal technological change. However, given the small dataset, it is not currently possible to identify specific relationships between workshops and latten sources.
Due to its innate mutability but limited potential geological origins, glass is the perfect material for such discussions. Particularly in terms of artifacts that have been remelted, identifying and understanding recycling can be particularly problematic. In this preliminary survey, an archaeometric approach has been taken. Previous chemical analyses of British glasses are considered for likely markers of recycling. These are then considered as proportions of an assemblage that are ‘likely recycled’ material from Roman period, compared to early Medieval ones. The eventual aim of this work is to address the question of whether the source of medieval glass was ‘a gradually diminishing and degrading reservoir of cullet, ultimately derived from the prodigious industries of the 1st to 4th centuries’.
In no small part due to both archaeometric analyses and shipwreck excavations, the extensive trade of glass ingots across the Mediterranean in the Roman Period is well known, as is the contemporaneous trade in glass cullet. However, the implications of such recycling are often dismissed in discussions of glass composition and trade. By separating out the different forms of recycling and understanding their likely compositional affects, glasses that are likely to have been recycled can be more easily identified. Using a legacy data approach to look at broad compositional trends, particularly the use of colourants and decolourants, proportions of recycled glass in specific assemblages can begin to be discussed, which feeds into larger discussions of glass trade.