Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 249: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology; Papers 52-54 on Archeology — David Hume — John Shaqi
Smithsonian Institution - United States National Museum - Bulletin 249: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology; Papers 52-54 on Archeology
David Hume · en
One might be tempted to believe that a glass candlestick would be
more likely to have been brought to 17th-century Virginia than would
a seemingly pretentious, covered, "ceremonial" drinking-glass. But in
1732, Thomas Jones[22] of Williamsburg made a settlement upon his wife
in case of his death, and among the possessions listed were "6 glass
decanters, 6 glasses with covers...."[23] Covered glasses ceased to
be popular after about 1720 when fashions in glass were turning from
the icy sparkle of mass towards more delicate and lighter designs. It
is possible, therefore, that the Jones' glass might have been of the
general type indicated by the Clay Bank stem. But be this as it may,
there is no doubt that the excavated stem is the finest piece of glass
of its period yet discovered in America, and that it is sufficiently
important to be able to add a paragraph to the history of English glass.
Other glass objects included the powdered remains of a small
quatrefoil-stemmed wineglass, a form common in the period
1680-1700.[24] Like so many glasses of its type, the metal was
singularly impermanent when buried in the ground, and little or nothing
could be salvaged of it. Also present were fragments of at least seven
wine bottles of the short-necked, squat-bodied forms of the late 17th
century, as well as one fragment of a short-necked and everted-mouthed
case bottle. A few fragments of cylindrical pharmaceutical bottles
were also found as was a well-preserved bottle of similar metal but
in wine-bottle shape (fig. 9 and fig. 15, no. 19). Such bottles are
thought to have been used for oils and essences, and their manufacture
seems to have been confined to the period about 1680-1720.
Tobacco-pipe fragments (fig. 16) were plentiful throughout the cellar
fill and provided a useful range of bowl forms as well as a key to
the dating of the deposit. All the bowls were of types common in the
last years of the 17th century, a period in which the two English bowl
styles of the second half of the century (one evolving with a spur and
the other with a heel) merged together into the single spurred form
of the 18th century.[25] In addition, the Clay Bank cellar contained
examples of bowls with neither heel nor spur, a style never popular in
England, and which seems to have been developed specifically for the
American market initially copying the shape favored by the Indians.