NEWS
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Collection
30 November, 2022
Decorative Applied Art in the Caucasus (Azerbaijan) Albania: Artistic Glass Handicraf

One of the arts and crafts fields which have reached high development level in the early medieval Azerbaijan was the production of glass. During the archaeological excavations in Mingechevir, Shamakhi, Ismayilli, Ganja, Gabala, Mountainous Garabagh and other parts of the country, lots of artistic glass artefacts have been revealed together with glass blowing ovens, wheels, semi-finished products and so on. Lots of glass vases, jugs, bowls, cups and flacons discovered as part of the period’s material heritage are characterized by great variety of forms and aesthetical appearance. Production of the local glassblowers also included various gems and women’s adornments. Among the discovered artefacts there are many round, flat (yastıtilli?) and twisted bracelets made from differently coloured (blue, green, yellow, black, red, violet, etc.) fragments of glass, as well as uniquely shaped and different-size glassware. Local glass production technologies evolved from the more ancient forging to the more innovative blowing. As seen from the archaeological material, production quality had been continuously improving, and already since the IV century A.D. the local glassblowers managed to cover the most the domestic demand. There are many early medieval glass artefacts stored in the Museum’s Archaeological Fund. One of them is a delicately worked goblet which had been discovered in 1938 by the archaeologist Yevgeniy Pakhomov from a jar burial in the Galagah village of Ismayilli. Made from a light-green colored glass, the goblet is decorated with inclined downright embossing ornaments, and has a height of 12.8 cm, base diameter of 6 cm and mouth diameter of 9 cm.