THE OLDEST CLAY TOBACCO PIPES FROM VILNIUS, LITHUANIA: THE INTERPRETATION OF ORIGIN, CHRONOLOGY AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

Abstract

Since the late 16th – early 17th century, tobacco smoking habit in Europe spread widely, which led to a new business branch – the production and sale of pipes. Due to the lack of historical data about when the habit of smoking tobacco emerged in eastern Baltic, it is imperative to pay attention to clay pipes that are considered to be a particularly suitable group of findings to specify the chronological limits. The article analyses in detail the chronologically earliest clay pipes found during archaeological research in Vilnius. Based on the typology of findings and known analogues, the author singles out the oldest pipes, names the possible places of their production, provides an interpretation of the appearance of pipes in the city. The article provides an overview of the development of smoking in Vilnius in the first half of the 17th century, as the text focuses not only on the analysis of findings, but also briefly introduces the historical, social and cultural contexts that led to the smoking of one or another type of tobacco pipe in Vilnius.