Glassworking in Classe: working debris from the southern district

According to the historian Andrea Agnello (9th century AD), the Basilica Petriana was the main Church of Classe (Ravenna), founded in the 5th century AD by Ravenna’s bishop, Pietro Crisologo, and destroyed by an earthquake in the 8th century AD. In the 60’s, archaeological research conducted in the southern rural area between the commercial port of Classe and the Basilica of Saint Apollinare allowed to identify the original location of the church and, in 2008-2009, further archaeological surveys have been undertaken by the University of Bologna in the same area. Excavations confirmed that the church went through a massive spoliation after its dismission, and, on that occasion, the pits were covered with wastes from a nearby manufacturing district. Numerous glass pieces were identified among these finds, as fragments of vessels and windows glass, tesserae and working debris. In this paper, the different typologies of glass wastes will be described and discussed in a perspective of a possible persistence of a glass production in Classe after the 8th century AD.