NEW DATA ON THE TECHNOLOGY OF FAIENCE PRODUCTION IN CENTRAL EUROPE IN THE EARLY BRONZE AGE

New data on faience production technologies in central Europe come from an analysis of 12 faience beads from an Early Bronze Age cemetery in Poland. The beads were tested with the EPMA method. Altogether 65 measurements were made. In terms of morphology, the artifacts are all the same, but they differ in microstructure and chemical composition. For some a mixed alkali flux was used, for others soda‐rich plant ashes. Even so, all of the beads seem to have been made from local raw materials in central Europe (soda‐rich plant ashes could have come from plants growing near one of the mainland salt sources, which are frequent, for example, in south‐eastern Poland).