Islamic gold sandwich glass vessels: evidences from al-Andalus

Within the repertoire of Andalusian glassware, there is little known evidences of gilded glass. For this reason, we have carried out a morphological and comparative analysis of a group of fragments, most of them unpublished, found in well-documented archaeological contexts, specifically from Madinat Ilbira (Granada), the northwestern suburb of Qurtuba (Cordoba) and the Archaeological Site of San Esteban (Murcia). The aim is to determine their importance and to provide data on some general questions about the context and dating. The re-sults have confirmed the existence of the two typologies known to date, bowls/vessels and bottles, all made using the technique of gold encapsulated between two layers of glass. The similarity of the decorative designs would indicate a common origin for all the pieces, possibly in the eastern Mediterranean area. The contexts also point to a pattern of consumption in Andalusian domestic environments with a chronology between the 9th-12th centuries AD, with an important presence in the capital of the Caliphate.