On Cobalt in the Old Russian Lead Glass | Chapter 01 | Recent Trends in Chemical and Material Sciences Vol. 8

 The goal of this study is to look at all of the known examples of cobalt use in Old Russian lead glass and estimate the availability of cobalt blue in pre-Mongolian times.

The use of cobalt was extremely unusual in Old Russian glassmaking, which began in the eleventh century AD and was based on the manufacturing of lead glass. Only three confirmed occurrences of cobalt being used for blue colouring of bracelets and beads have been documented until recently. In addition, two occurrences of possible cobalt colouring were documented, but the usage of cobalt was not proven due to the lack of appropriate analytical procedures at the time. During the last two decades, the author has acquired seven more glass objects containing cobalt. All of these potash-lead glass bracelets and beads were discovered in pre-Mongolian layers in Old Russian towns and cities such as Novgorod, Vladimir, Smolensk, Tver, and Suzdal, among others. Another blue bracelet of this type has been discovered in Bolgar, a mediaeval Volga Bulgarian city, and has been studied at Kazan University.

Only with a considerable degree of uncertainty could the single early Russian artefact taken from Kiev's St. Sophia Cathedral be called a creation of a Russian workshop. It is a fragment of tessera from one of the earliest Russian temples, and has an extraordinarily high amount of cobalt, improved content of sodium, and contains antimony, which functions as an opacifier, in contrast to all other investigated artefacts. Antimony is infrequently utilised in Russian lead glass, and it is only discovered in one other sample considered here.

The blue coloration has not been attained with cobalt blue in two artefacts, one of which has increased manganese concentration. These findings support the theory that cobalt blue was transported into Russia on occasion from many sources, and that the pre-Mongolian tradition of its use did not arise independently.

Author(S) Details

A. N. Egorkov
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the History of Material Culture, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

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