Black Assarca Glass

Only a few non-ceramic artifacts were found on the wreck at Black Assarca.  One of these was a piece of glass, found upslope of the central wreck area.  Greenish-blue in color with a hollow base ring, it is apparently the remains of a wineglass or goblet, and a break indicates where the stem was once attached.   Wine glasses found at other late Roman and Early Byzantine sites have similar rims (Sa'id 2004).  These glasses were produced in abundance in the fourth and fifth centuries and later.  During the Roman period, glass was a regular trade item on the Red Sea (Stern 1999: 477) and may also have been in the subsequent Byzantine era.   The Byzantine stemmed goblet which is similar to modern wineglasses was “used far beyond the borders of the empire… (and likely) originated around the middle of the fifth century, presumably in Syria or Palestine” (Stern 1999: 483).  Pieces of Mediterranean glass from Arikamedu in India at the terminus of the Mediterranean-India sailing route are believed to be personal possessions and not items of trade (Stern 1999: 477).   This might have been the case at Black Assarca.  The proximity of the glass shard to a steelyard counterweight (see below) argues for this as the merchant would have kept his personal items and tools together on the ship as seen on the 7th-century shipwreck at Yassiada, Turkey (van Doorninck 1972: 143). 

Glass shards were found in association with the Aqaba kilns where amphoras similar to those on the shipwreck have been found (Melkawi, Amr, and Whitcomb 1994: 460).  Glass at Aqaba appears to be imported from Egypt and the Syro-Palestinian coast and not created on site (Parker 1996: 252).  Sidon has long been a glass-producing area (Pliny HN 36.190), and remained so in the Byzantine period (Stern 1999: 454).  While recycling of glass in antiquity is a well-known phenomenon, the absence of glass in abundance at Black Assarca argues against the possibility the glass was meant for this, although if further excavation reveals more glass this view could change.