The Chemical Composition And Manufacture Process Of The Glass Beads Excavated From Yanghai Cemetery In Shanshan County,Xinjiang

Yanghai cemetery are located in Yanghaixia villiage,Tuyugou countryside,Shanshan county,Xinjiang Province.The cultural identity of Yanghai cemetery is of consistency to some degree and covers the whole development process of Subeixi Culture.Breakthrough of research on archaeology in Turpan Basin in the period of thousand years B.C.was made owing to massive excavation of Yanghai cemetery which is of significant academic value.Many glass beads made from 10 century B.C.to 2 century A.D.were excavated from Yanghai cemetery which are man-made artifacts representing culture exchange between the West and the East and research on the chemical compositions and manufacture process of these glass beads will help investigation on the provenance and spread routes.LA-ICP-AES,XRF,3D microscope with super wide depth of field and other multivariate statistic analysis methods were used to conduct analysis towards these glass beads to figure out their chemical compositions and manufacture process.Based on these results,the provenance these glass beads are discussed.Main conclusions are shown as following:(1)The glass beads of Yanghai cemetery are of different chemical composition systems,Na2O-Ca O-Si O2 system,K2O-Ca O-Si O2 system,Pb O-Ba O-Si O2 system and potash systems all included.Besides,manganese,copper and cobaltic were used as colorants.(2)Different manufacture processes of two kinds of eye beads were discovered by micrograph.One kind was made by embed method,and the other was made by dripping method.Besides,potash glass beads were possibly made by drawing method through observation of their sizes,shapes and cross grains on the surface,another evidence to prove their species-“India-Atlantic beads”.(3)Different glass beads own various provenances.Early natron glass beads are possibly from Egypt,while plant ash glass beads of Bronze age and Iron age were possibly from Mesopotamia and Persia and Potash glass beads are related to glass from India.Besides,glass beads of K2O-Ca O-Si O2 system and Pb O-Ba O-Si O2 system are possibly made in China.All these evidence show that citizens of Yanghai were intimately linked to Central China,India and Northern and Western Asia from 10 century B.C.to 2 century A.D.Turpan Basin was once a convergent point of material and culture exchanges from different regions at that time,which is represented by Yanghai cemetery.