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Second important display of the museum is so called "the glass ship wreck" where visitors enjoy not only an amazing collection of ancient glassware discovered in one single wreck but also reconstructed ship's hull. This ship with very unusual cargo was discovered at Serce Limani, at south west Turkey near Marmaris. Serce Limani or Sparrow Harbour is small protected harbour with very narrow entrance.
The ship contained more artefacts than any other shipwreck excavated up this time and yielded a collection of most closely dated assemblage of Islamic ceramics, glass, metal. It is well accepted that this was a Arabic ship of 11th century with a glass cargo which consisted of finished product in addition to nearly 2 tons of raw glass culets and nearly 1 ton of thousands of broken pieces. This ship, which started from the southern part of the Syrian coast, was carrying a cargo to a glass factory for re-melting and remaking the glass somewhere either in Crimea or lower Danube region.
People on the ship did some fishing. They also played chess when they had free time. Examining the swords, daggers and weapons we understand that they were also well armed for the sudden attacks.
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The Glass Shipwreck
Many ancient ships sank outside of this protected harbour while they were trying to reach to Serce Harbour or even inside of the harbour. Some others went down while they were even in this protected harbour. This was a small ship 16 meters long and had a flat bottom designed for river navigation. This shipwreck was discovered near Marmaris, at Serce Limani, a natural harbour on the Turkish southern coast in 1977. The ship was lying at 35 meters depth and archaeologist had to move 100 tons of sand to reach to finds of the ship. The result was astonishing.
The finds at the shipwreck gives us idea about its age, its passengers and glassworks of its time. Nearly 110 amphorae were discovered at the shipwreck. It is suggested that some of these amphorae contained wine cargo while the rest provided food and drinks for the passengers. The Islamic coins discovered in the ship tell us this was a Muslim ship. From the remains of pork bones, the archaeologist suggest that there were some Christian passenger on the ship. This fact is further confirmed with the existence of artefacts depicting figures of Peter and Paul and Mary and Christ.