The Corrosion of Buried Glass

The composition of Egyptian, Near Eastern and European archaeological glass has been studied for more than 100 years, and a number of well-defined chemical groups have been identified  

Observation of the nature of the corrosion products on buried glass goes back at least as far as Brewster (1863), who reported the characteristic flakiness and surface iridescence. Under the microscope he observed a fine laminar structure with a range of thicknesses between 0.3 and 15 pm, which he deduced 

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