green glaze

Ingredients

quartz ceramics, glaze

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The use of quartz ceramics (sometimes referred to by the term ZA.GÌN or uqnu) served as a suitable base material to receive glazes meant to imitate more expensive materials like blue lapis lazuli or various shades of green (p. 100). The specific green glaze analyzed here was applied to frog-shaped pendants fashioned with a noticeable ridge on their back, wide webbed feet, and bulging eyes, likely to enhance the amuletic properties through color-analogy with the living animal (p. 100).

Evidence

"On two pendants (Figure 1.2–3) traces of green glaze were visible, microscopic analysis conducted by E. Götting-Martin further revealed that this green glaze could be discovered on all four pendants."

Remarks

The analyzed artifacts are four large frog pendants, up to 6 cm long and weighing up to 46.7 g (BM 116913, BM 116914, BM 17070). Due to their size, the authors suggest they may have been hung in a room or used as votive offerings rather than worn as jewelry (p. 100). The choice of green and blue glazes is explicitly linked to the aquatic nature of frogs and toads in Mesopotamian thought (p. 100).