Glass Finds from Town of Brody in Lviv Region

Abstract

The paper is devoted to glass finds discovered in autumn 2020 during archeological excavations in the town of Brody in Lviv region, conducted by the Rescue Archaeological Service with the involvement of employees of the Brody Museum of History and District Ethnography. It is stated that the glassware found at two different locations – Vesela street and Rynok square – is of huta origin. Such a conclusion is made based on the presence of peculiar air bubbles in the glass melt, which is a characteristic feature of glass produced in forest hutas. After all, it was impossible to get a temperature of more than 1450°C in such hutas.

Glass finds from Vesela street come from two objects – a cellar pit and a ditch. From the first one, mostly the bottles come, which is quite natural. Among the typical cylindrical and pharmacy bottles, there are three made of transparent glass, the bottom of which has a curved convex shape. The author of the paper has not seen such bottles before. The ditch is also rich in various bottles – pharmacy, cylindrical, flat, and shtof-bottles. At the same time, there are some tankards there typical for that time.

At the site of the Rynok square, the ratio of glass finds of the 17^th – 18^th centuries differs – the drinking vessels dominate here – tankards, glasses, and goblets. Among the containers for storage, there are many fragments of large glass bottles. In fact, the finds from the Rynok square are closely connected – the vessels out of which the alcohol is poured, and the vessels out of which it is drunk. These finds once again confirm that the Rynok square was the center of urban life.

Most of the vessels found in Brody are typical of their time glass vessels. However, in addition to the above-mentioned bottles with a convex bottom, there are also two fragments of the so-called double-handled tankards. Such finds are quite rare. Only a few of their analogues are known: from Pidhirtsi, Lviv, Olesk, and Unev. Taking into account that in Pidhirtsi there was a glass huta in the 18^th century, finds from Brody might well be produced by its artisans.

Also, a unique find from the Rynok square is a half of a glass gallo – a ball designed for ironing seams and edges of shirts. A similar find has been recently discovered during excavations in Khmelnytskyi.

Thus, the glass finds discovered in Brody represent the main forms and types of huta glass produced items of the 17^th –  the middle of the 19^th century. Some of them allow to get extra information on the products assortment of contemporary hutas and can serve as an analogy for dating similar finds. The analysis and introduction of Brody glass into scientific circulation allows for a much better understanding of everyday life and household activities of the urban community.