October 3, 2011 
Across Europe, only 16 glasses dating from the 16th century are preserved, while the Museum of Biograd preserves 240 glasses from this century…
– About five thousand glass objects were found at the ship sunk in the 16th century near the island Gnalić in the Pašman channel. We chose 600 representative cases and now we present them to the public. We have mirrors, window glass, precious and ordinary glasses, jugs, chalices, glass beads … The biggest rarity are the glasses, which we found in several boxes at the sunk ship- said Ivo Fadić, director of the Museum of Zadar’s ancient glass which will on Thursday night open the exhibition called “Glass of the depths.”
All exhibits come from the ship sank near the islet Gnalić, the glass is primarily Venetian production from the 16th century, but the greatest curiosity of the sunken cargo are the boxes with preserved glasses.
– 240 pairs of glasses were lifted from the sunken ship. That, according to research conducted so far, is a world rarity. According to this study, across Europe there is a total of 16 glasses from the 1th century, and we have, only at one site, 240 of them – Fadić said.
The curiosity is also that a quarter of a cargo of the sunken ship was just glass.
Draženko Samardžić, director of the Regional Museum in Biograd which keeps material from the sunken ship, warned that the burden of this collection still awaits proper evaluation and presentation, especially the underwater site where there are still sunken items.
– This is one of the most important underwater sites in the Adriatic and it is alarming to make a further investigation. We took 20,000 items, but many still lie on the seabed. They should be taken out, the site should be investigated and all of the sunken ship should be identified. For all of that in Croatia we have top professionals, underwater archeologists – Samardzić said.
Exhibits from a sunken ship, “a magical material from the 16th century “, will soon travel to the presentation in the Austrian Bernabch, to the local museum of glass. The exhibition in Zadar will be opened until 1st December.
Taken from: www.slobodnadalmacija.hr