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A collection of glass from Port Royal, Jamaica with some observations on the site, its history and archaeology

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References

  1. Robert F. Marx: Pirate Port: The Story of the Sunken City of Port Royal, Cleveland, 1967, p. 19.

  2. Frank Cundall: Historic Jamaica, London, 1915, pp. 57-58. Also Marx, op. cit., p. 19, and Marion Clayton Link: “Exploring the Drowned City of Port Royal,” National Geographic, February, 1960, pp. 166-167.

  3. Audrey Noël Hume: “Clay Tobacco Pipe Dating in the Light of Recent Excavations,” Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeo-logical Society of Virginia, Vol. 18, No. 2, (December 1963), pp. 22–25.

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  4. Ivor Noel Hume: Treasure in the Thames, London, 1956, PL XXXIII and XXXIV.

  5. This argument was explored at some length in the writer’s Ms. report “A Review of Arhcaeological Problems at Port Royal and some Thoughts on How they may be Resolved,” submitted to the Jamaica National Trust, April 17, 1967.

  6. Quoted by Cundall, op. cit., p. 60.

  7. London, 1774, Vol. II, p. 141 (approx). Source provided in communication from Robert F. Marx, June 30, 1968.

  8. Robert F. Marx: Pirate Port, p. 14.

  9. Link, op. cit., pp. 152-154.

  10. Quoted by Cundall, op. cit., p. 54. The letter is published in part in the Calendar of State Papers (Colonial Series), America and West Indies, 1689-1692, and there the duration of the earthquake is given as ten and not two minutes. However, Cundall’s transcript was taken from the manuscript Council Minutes in the Library of the Institute of Jamaica.

  11. Quoted by Cundall, op. cit., pp. 62-63, from A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West Indies; in His Majesty’s ships the Swallow and Weymouth by John Atkins, 2nd edition, London, 1737.

  12. Quoted by Cundall, op. cit., p. 51, from Francis Hanson’s account of the present state of Jamaica appended to the first edition (1682) of the Laws of Jamaica.

  13. John Taylor “Taylor’s 2nd part of the Historic of His Life and Travels in America,” 1683-1688. Ms. in the West India Reference Library, Kingston, Jamaica.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Clockmaking and silversmithing were often carried on in the same shop, and there is some archaeological indication that this was so at Port Royal.

  16. See Note 10.

  17. Cundall, op. cit., pp. 78-79.

  18. Link, op. cit., pp. 170, 173, 180.

  19. Robert F. Marx: “Wine Glasses from the Sunken City of Port Royal:May 1, 1966-March 31, 1968,” mimeographed drawings distributed by the Jamaica National Trust Commission, Kingston, Jamaica, May, 1968.

  20. 37 out of 70 drinking glass fragments.

  21. pp. 150-151.

  22. William Louis Calver and Reginald Pelham Bolton: History Written with Pick and Shovel, New-York Historical Society, N. Y., 1950, p. 20, No. 10, p. 98, Pl. III, No. 1; “Specimen No. 1 probably belongs to a period a little later than the Revolution, for amongst the thousands of uniform buttons from the War of Independence sites no inscribed buttons of the Artillery or any bearing a device suggestive of that branch of the service appear.” p. 108.

  23. See Note 19.

  24. One possible exception is too decayed to be identified with certainty.

  25. See Note 19.; illustrations Nos. 75, 80, 82 and perhaps 73.

  26. An important question is whether the water level was always that high. Mr. Marx, located three circular, brick-walled features resembling well shafts, but as the brickwork was mortared it remains uncertain whether they were the tops of wells (which are mortared) or were sis-terns for water storage. It has always been assumed that there was no fresh water supply at Port Royal; indeed, in 1894 experimental borings were made to a depth of 270 feet without any success.

  27. See Note 13; n.p.

  28. Robert F. Marx: “Clay Smoking Pipes Recovered from the Sunken City of Port Royal: May 1, 1966-September 30, 1967,” m meographed drawings distributed by the Jamaica National Trust, Kingston, Jamaica, March, 1968.

  29. Six examples are recorded by Mr. Marx.

  30. Three examples are represented in the Cornman Collection.

  31. Opaque-twist glasses are represented in the Cornman Collection by three examples.

  32. The collection also contains three base fragments from pale green, cylindrical phials of non-lead metals, two of them probably of 17th-century date.

  33. Ann Finer and George Savage: The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, London, 1965, p. 29, Wedgwood to Sir William Meredith, 2 March, 1765.

  34. Ivor Noel Hume: “Excavations at Clay Bank in Gloucester County, Virginia, 1962-1963, United States National Museum Bulletin 249, Paper 52, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C, 1966, p. 17.

  35. W. A. Thorpe: English Glass, London, 1949, p. 160ff. Thorpe states that “There was an export trade [in lead crystal] before the end of the seventeenth century.” See also H. J. Powell, Glass-Making in England, Cambridge, 1923, p. 86ff, and John Houghton, A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, revised edition, London, 1727, letter No. 198 for May 15, 1696, listing 27 flint glass furnaces in England. The list is reprinted by Albert Hartshorne in Old English Glasses, London, 1897, p. 457.

  36. Joseph Phillipe: Initiation a I’Histoire du Verre, Liege, 1964, Fig. 106.

  37. E. Barrington Haynes: Glass Through the Ages, Harmondsworth, England, revised edition, 1959, Fig. 28c. For an example in use in 18th century France, see James Barrelet, La Verrerie en France, Paris, 1953, Pl. XLVIII, top right, a detail from a portrait dated 1755.

  38. Robert Charleston: “Lead in Glass,” Archaeometry, Vol. III, London, 1960, p. 2f.

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Hume, N. A collection of glass from Port Royal, Jamaica with some observations on the site, its history and archaeology. Hist Arch 2, 5–34 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03373361

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