Domeroni

Domeroni t1_it8g7pe wrote

Absolutely and same here lol. It's not just the material you study though - you learn loads about the people who used them, the place they lived in, the society they were part of and how they interacted with the wider world.

Also you learn so fucking much about their trash

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Domeroni t1_it6e3cq wrote

You're correct for relatively short timescales but medieval Islamic glass was mostly of the soda-lime-silica type. On the shelf of a medieval castle it'd last a few lifetimes. But in wet and acidic conditions we find that the soda and lime components of the glass on the outer layers would react and change the structure of the material.

Glass has an impure and uneven lattice (which is good because it allows us to mould it at high temperatures), meaning water molecules can seep into gaps in the lattice and draw away structural components such as the lime. This happens incredibly slowly since the structural bonds are really strong. But over the course of centuries sitting in a peat bog we see that lime reacting away, leaving a brittle and opaque product.

The process is called weathering and I'd really recommend the book "Ancient Glass" by Julian Henderson if you're interested and want to read more

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