Update 5

We met last Wednesday to take spectral data readings of the glass lamp samples at the Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology. Professor Holod, Joe Kider, and Katy Blanchard, keeper of the Islamic collections for the museum, were also there to assist us in our readings. We took measurements for a tumbler, a lamp, a shard from the bottom of a lamp, and another shard. Using a diffuser, two monochromatic white lights, and a tactical hunting light, we were able to take measurements under six different setups. Diagrams of these setups can be seen below (thanks to Joe for the diagrams!): 

The results of these readings will be posted as soon as Cory is able to retrieve them from the spectroradiometer. More pictures can be seen here.

We also looked into some of the books Professor Holod suggested; Cairo of the Mamluks was unavailable so we requested it through interlibrary loan, and we didn't find anything particularly useful in Meditation of Ornament. However, we will be using scans from Glass of the Sultans as references for our models. Professor Holod also suggested that we look into Lighting in Early Byzantium, which will be published sometime this month. 

The meeting scheduled for last Thursday was cancelled, but we were able to meet with Cory today to ask some of the questions we meant to ask last week. We've realized that some parts of our project have changed greatly from when we first began, and one of our main focuses for now is reassessing and defining our goals for the remainder of the semester. We plan on meeting with Professor Sofanova, Dr. Badler, and (hopefully) Joe this week, and we will post an update on the details of our project afterwards.