Fragment naczynia szklanego z napisem znaleziony w Odercy (Bułgaria)

A fragment of the upper part of a beaker of transparent olive-green glass decorated with a series of non-transparent red-brown glass trails was discovered in a 4th/5th c. assemblage at the Byzantine fortress in Odărci (northeastern Bulgaria). The space between the two sets of trails is filled with two rows of letters in the Greek alphabet, which were painted with a color that is now white. The body of the vessel and the ornament were both made of glass of the Na2O · CaO · Al2O3 · SiO2 chemical type. The body (matrix) glass was colored with oxides of iron (Fe2O3) and titanium (TiO2), that of the ornament with oxides of iron (Fe2O3), manganese (MnO) and copper (CuO). The results of a comparative analysis of sum totals and ratios of main glass-forming components and the quantitative content of different components in the glass of vessel from Odărci, compared to objects from other regions, appear to indicate that the glass of beaker was melted in a center somewhere in southern Europe or in Mediterranean center (in the late Roman or early Byzantine period).