Archaeology Collection - Stemware Glass

An 18th-Century Treasure Trove

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In 1984, an excavator operator, preparing ground for a new office tower in downtown Halifax, scooped up a remarkable jumble of 18th-century urban life. Dishes, wine bottles, table glass, tableware, tools, musket balls, toys, fishing gear, harness and dress buckles, wig curlers, keys – more than 25,000 artifacts were eventually recovered, all of them broken or in disrepair.

This stemware fragment, missing its drawn trumpet bowl, comes from a glass that was typically used at finer table settings in Halifax – maybe even at the nearby Great Pontack Inn. The brown discoloration you see occurred naturally after the glass was tossed away and buried for more than 200 years.

Object type: 
partial drinking glass, stemmed
Object #: 
BdCv-5: 12913
Collection name: 
Date (age/made): 
mid 18th century, British colonial
Origin/place: 
Britain
Materials: 
glass
Dimensions: 
8 cm in height; 6 cm diameter at base