The Corning Museum of Glass has awarded two Rakow Grants for Glass Research in 2009 to fund a research project on the trading of glass in the Middle East & India, as well as a book on Mexican glass. Stéphanie Boulogne, a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lab d'Archéologie Médiévale Méditerranéenne at the Université de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, is working on a dissertation about glass bangles from Bilad al-Sham (a region encompassing Jordan, Syria, & Lebanon). She is exploring trade between the Middle East & India through a study of the techniques, colours & designs of 14-17th-century glass. The study of glass bangles excavated in Bilad al-Sham & attributed to medieval & later times showed that they came from many different places in the Near East, Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, India, Nepal, sub-Saharan Africa.
