Glass

Flat glass

Large quantities of flat glass for windows and mirrors were present in the ship’s cargo. All window panes are round in shape and are bordered with folded edge. Apart from different dimensions, they can be divided into groups of decorated and undecorated glass, of which the second group is far more numerous. The glasses from both groups are of extremely high quality, and during transport they were protected by straw. The window panes were made by a special technique of blowing and opening out a bubble of glass, and the glass paste would rotate to allow centrifugal forces to act and create a properly shaped glass plate. Glass with embossed rosette design was made by the optical blowing technique.

Mirror glasses were transported as semi-finished or finished products. All unfinished glass for mirrors had a rectangular shape, while the finished products were rectangular or round. The glasses were made by casting on a flat stone surface, followed by polishing and cutting to the desired size. Unfinished cast glass for mirrors is recognizable by the rough surface with which the glass paste touched the stone base, and by the rounded and unfinished edges. In contrast, the finished mirrors are characterized by a polished surface, straight cut edges and traces of a silvery reflective background layer that was made by pouring mercury on a tin sheet. The reflective amalgam disintegrated in the seawater due to the corrosion of the tin, and the released mercury is still present at the site.

Hollow glass

A high share of the ship’s cargo consisted of over 5,500 glass items classified into 60 typological groups that include thousands of pieces of different types of vessels. Items from the ship cargo were intended for a wide market and various customers, which can be deduced from their typological and functional diversity. Irena Lazar and Hugh Willmott (2006) defined the group of vessel glass, comprising tableware and containers. Three decades earlier, Astone Gasparetto (1976) proposed the group of hollow glass, into which could fit the other ‘hollow’ glassware that does not necessarily belong to tableware or containers.

The hollow glassware or vessel glass comprises beakers, goblets, tankards, bowls, lids, tazzae and vases, all made of white glass and divided into several variants, and small bowls, jugs, oval and square bottles, made of coloured glass. Containers were divided into sprinklers, flasks, bottles and jars. From this group, pear-shaped bottles, which may have been intended for making hourglasses, stand out.

Coloured glass from the shipwreck of Gnalić may appear as a single colour, made by the technique of blowing the opaque material, but the most impressive objects are those decorated with blobs of coloured glass and those made of chalcedony glass. Pieces of coloured glass were added to the heated glass paste, after which it would be heated again until the added pieces melted. It is assumed that these products originated in Western Europe for the Eastern market.

Beads

The uncounted glass beads were long just a group of attractive multi-coloured items not subject to special concern. Thus, in the published literature their quantity was expressed in rather ambiguous numerical and weight terms. Keeping in mind that during campaigns from 2012 to 2018, slightly more than 15,000 pieces were recovered from digs and the surface layer, the total number of finds thus far is at least five times higher. Given the situation at the site, the continuation of research will certainly result in an additional increase in the quantity of these quite popular glass adornments, which were made in many European workshops based on the Venetian models. In Venice they were called paternostri, so they can indeed be found under this designation in cargo manifests.

In 2017, systematic work commenced to count and classify the materials which has thus far resulted in the identification of over 70 typological groups, specified by shape, colour, decoration and/or structure. Out of the four possible crafting techniques, the beads from Gnalić were made exclusively by the drawing technique, typical of the 16^th century, and in terms of shapes they can be divided into tubular and circular (including barrel-shaped and oval). The astonishing popularity of these items during and after the great discoveries led to their mass production and sanctions for its regulation, which resulted in a Venetian state monopoly.