ABSTRACT

How might an interdisciplinary approach involving experimental archaeology improve our knowledge of glassmaking in medieval Iberia? Our current limited understanding lacks an appreciation of how surviving remains were created through the actual practice of glassmaking—herein lies the biggest single gap in knowledge. Archaeological experiments show that while the infima glassmaking recipe offers a credible guide to basic glassmaking technology, it is best interpreted as a set of learned instructions rooted in, though not describing, workshop practice. Awareness of the sensory qualities of glass, the conducting of experiments, and observation of glass production practice, all combined within a theoretical framework that embraces embodied knowledge and phenomenological aspects of space and time, suggest the potential existence of an encoded “text” of past glassmaking practice within archaeological workshop remains. The authors advocate further experimental archaeology on a more ambitious scale, exploring the sensory and performative aspects of glassmaking practice, to better learn to read the distinctive handwriting of this “text” in medieval Iberian archaeology.

摘要

涉及实验考古学的跨学科方法如何改善我们对中世纪伊比利亚玻璃制造的了解？我们目前有限的理解缺乏对如何通过玻璃制造的实际实践来创造残存遗体的认识，这是知识上最大的单一空白。考古实验表明，虽然infima玻璃制造配方为基本的玻璃制造技术提供了可靠的指南，最好将其解释为植根于车间实践中的一组学到的指导，尽管没有描述。对玻璃感官品质的意识，进行的实验以及对玻璃生产实践的观察，都结合在一个理论框架中，涵盖了时空的具体知识和现象学方面，这表明过去存在编码的“文本”的潜在可能考古车间内的玻璃制作实践依然存在。作者主张以更大的规模进行进一步的实验考古，探索玻璃制作实践的感官和表现方面，以更好地学习阅读中世纪伊比利亚考古中这种“文字”的独特笔迹。