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shoulders, and cylindrical necks with plain rims. They are generally light or medium purple (sometimes with amber swirls), amber, light green, or light green with purple swirls, with a spout of the same color but of a darker shade. It is estimated that fragments from a minimum of 33 cupping glasses and 23 alembic heads were in the cullet. Based on colors, rim heights, diameters, and glass quality, there seem to have been 31 folded rims that represent individual cupping glasses. The other 15 cupping-glass rims, being tiny, do not provide enough information to determine if they represent separate glass vessels. There are fewer spouts than rim fragments, and because it is not possible to determine with which rim any is associated, spouts are not used in estimating the number of cupping glasses represented. Both cupping glasses and alembics employ conical spouts. Unfortunately, no Serçe Limanı vessel has a completely preserved spout. Of 17 spouts still attached to body fragments, those with straight or vertical body fragments can be distinguished as belonging to cupping glasses. Spouts with curving body fragments belong to alembics. Although the spouts of cupping glasses and alembics with no body fragments attached are difficult to distinguish from one another, it is assumed that the thinner walls of cupping glasses could not as easily have supported the weight of the heavier spouts, which are unusually thick, averaging 2.3 mm at their bases. Thus, light-colored spouts that are clear, of good glass quality, and evenly thin have been assigned to cupping The cupping glasses (or bleeding cups) and alembic heads from Serçe Limanı were studied together because of the similarity of their long spouts, which distinguish them from all other medieval Islamic glass vessels, and because of their uses in medieval science (Fig. 34-1 with Pls. 31 and 32). Recognizable body fragments of cupping glasses and alembics on the Serçe Limanı wreck are too few to form a complete vessel of either type, but joined shards form one nearly complete cupping glass (CG 1) and at least three-quarters of two alembic heads, or capitals. Fragments of cupping glasses and alembics can be distinguished from one another by shape, glass thickness, and color variation. Cupping glasses have thin, fragile, nearly cylindrical bodies that average 0.7 mm in thickness. One end, which is called the bottom although it could have served as the top during use, is rounded. At the other end is a hollow, folded rim, 4–6 cm in diameter; average rim thickness is 2 mm. The spout is attached near the rim. Colors vary from light shades of yellowgreen , green, blue-green, blue, and amber to light purple on a single example. Bodies and spouts are of the same color, but because of the thickness created by the fold the rim is usually a shade darker than the rest of the vessel. Although seed and striations make some rims opaque, the general clarity, uniformly light coloring, and thinness of the bodies facilitate viewing the amount of skin drawn inside. Alembic heads have thicker, somewhat hemispherical bodies with an average thickness of 1.5–2.0 mm, inverted S-shaped # C H A P T E R 34 Cupping Glasses and Alembics Arsala Deane and George F. Bass Illustrated by Sheila Matthews 378 part x: miscellaneous glass objects Similarly, a glass from Susa said to be from around 900 is like ours. From Nishapur, an eighth- or ninth-century example is similar to ours, but with its spout attached at a greater angle, and a ninth- or tenth-century example is similar in body and folded rim but its spout is much more curved than any known from Serçe Limanı. An Egyptian glass, thought by Lamm to be from the sixth or seventh century, is more like those from the shipwreck than an example from Susa he dates to around the tenth century. Also roughly contemporary with the shipwreck , ninth to thirteenth century, those from Dvin lack the folded rim, and their spouts are attached at greater angles than are ours. A cupping glass of unknown provenience and date in the Benaki Museum has a ring base that shows why that end is considered the bottom, although the mouth could be at the bottom when the glass was in use. Serçe Limanı cupping glass CG 1 cannot stand on its bottom. The Serçe Limanı cupping glasses seem to have come in distinct sizes and thus, after...

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