chicago's earliest known unearthed or dug glass "bottle" is an amber scroll flask

reiterating a previous post:

after discussing my recent urban privy find with several people in the field (e.g., historians, archaeologists, chicago bottle collectors and so on), there is very little doubt that i have come across the oldest known/documented chicago urban privy pit, with artifacts pulled from various "pockets" dating between the late 1830's-1850's.

most of the nearby pockets of mid-19th century artifacts were a few feet higher than the flasks, and contained mochaware from the 1850's. the bottles at the bottom were open-pontiled, and as i moved upward, the fragments exhibited iron pontil scars. aside from the flasks, i am utterly obsessed with the vibrantly colored mochaware found near the flasks.

finding the second aqua scroll flask (fragment) with an open-pontil scar base was truly a shocker. granted, these unearthed finds are all essentially fragments, but i could care less. i'm not motivated by money or the need to find and sell. i just feel this pressing obligation to find any and all fragments from this rare, once-in-a-lifetime privy site.

update as of 10-28-2015:

one of the sources where the "oldest bottle dug in chicago" claim was introduced to  the chicago bottle club, which consists of collectors and historians alike, who have been involved in digging in and around chicago since 1969. their october newsletter made the initial announcement.

it appears after further research and discussion with a number of reputable people in the field, the open-pontiled amber scroll flask fragment is indeed the oldest known "bottle" to be unearthed in the city of chicago. discovering this flask fragment, along with extracting privy vaults that are circular in shape and were built with wood floors (both a first) are my two major contributions to urban archaeology in chicago.

these remarkable findings provided the much-needed fuel to attempt to discover or unearth even older artifacts, which seems promising, considering the amount of construction being done downtown. the "portals to the past" are opening up all around me... i just need to try my very best to be there to discover and document what, if anything, has been buried deep underground.

the photo gallery below shows additional fragments that were discovered in "pockets" surrounding the location of the amber flask. the aqua scroll flask fragment was found in one of these pockets, so in all actuality, a total of two flasks or fragments were discovered at this dig site. the additional fragments included mochaware, transferware, flow blue china, flint glass, etc. each and every piece of the assemblage was meticulously cleaned and documented.