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Clay Pipes and Smoking Paraphernalia from the Kitten Shipwreck, an Early Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Merchantman

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Abstract

Between 2000 and 2003, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in collaboration with the Bulgarian Centre for Underwater Archaeology excavated the remains of an Ottoman period shipwreck in the southern bay of the town of Kitten, Bulgaria, dating to the reign of Sultan Selim III (1789–1807). This article discusses the smoking pipes and paraphernalia found on the wreck. The studied material offers a refinement to the dating of Ottoman pipes and proposes a reading of Ottoman pipe stamps from the Balkans that were hitherto considered undecipherable.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to express his gratitude to Dr. John McManamon of Loyola University, Chicago, who read and commented on an early draught of this article. His help is deeply appreciated. Dr. Donny Hamilton of the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University also read and commented on the first draught and his sage advice is deeply appreciated. The author is much obliged to Dr. Cheryl Ward for her valuable advice. The contribution of the Arabic scholar Mr. Azam Halabi from the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, in reading the pipe stamps is gratefully acknowledged. The author would also like to express his gratitude to Dr. Deborah Cvikel, Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, for submitting photos of the pipe stamps to Mr. Halabi for identification, for her encouragement and for reading and extensively commenting on the last draught of this article. Dr. Kalin Porozhanov’s support and encouragement is hereby gratefully acknowledged. Naturally, all mistakes and shortcomings in this work are entirely the responsibility of the author. The excavation of the Kitten shipwreck was made possible by generous grants from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, the National Geographic Council for Exploration, RPM Nautical Foundation and private individuals.

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Correspondence to Kroum N. Batchvarov.

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Batchvarov, K.N. Clay Pipes and Smoking Paraphernalia from the Kitten Shipwreck, an Early Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Merchantman. Int J Histor Archaeol 18, 1–19 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-013-0244-z

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