Glass History: Ancient Times
Task: You are working as a trainee at the glassmuseum in Rheinbach. The head of the press department has begged you and your colleagues to write a short overview on the history of glass for the catalogue of the permanent exhibition. Use the following text as a database and write a summary on glass in ancient times. Put your text in the Glass Classroom.
If you don't know exactly how to summarize, open this worksheet: summary (beginners)
The
discovery of glass
Natural glass is as old as the earth itself, formed when certain types of
rocks melt as a result of high-temperature phenomena such as volcanic eruptions,
lightning strikes or the impact of meteorites, and then cool and solidify
rapidly. Stone-age man is believed to have used cutting tools made of obsidian,
a natural glass of volcanic origin.
According to the ancient-Roman historian Pliny (AD 23-79), Phoenician merchants transporting stone discovered glass (or rather became aware of its existence accidentally) in the region of Syria around 5000 BC. Pliny tells how the merchants, after landing, rested cooking pots on blocks of nitrate placed by their fire. With the intense heat of the fire, the blocks eventually melted and mixed with the sand of the beach to form an opaque liquid. Look here at Phoenician glass manufacturing and designing.
Early man-made glass
The earliest man-made glass objects, mainly non-transparent glass beads, are thought to date back to around 3500 BC, with finds in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia. In the third millennium, in central Mesopotamia, the basic raw materials of glass were being used principally to produce glazes on pots and vases. The discovery may have been coincidental, with calciferous sand finding its way into an overheated kiln and combining with soda to form a coloured glaze on the ceramics. It was then, above all, Phoenician merchants and sailors who spread this new art along the coasts of the Mediterranean.The oldest fragments of glass vases (evidence of the origins of the hollow glass industry), however, date back to the 16th century BC and were found in Mesopotamia. Hollow glass production was also evolving around this time in Egypt, and there is evidence of other ancient glassmaking activities emerging independently in Mycenae (Greece), China and North Tyrol (Austria).
After 1500 BC, Egyptian craftsmen are known to have begun developing a method for producing glass pots by dipping a core mould of compacted sand into molten glass and then turning the mould so that molten glass adhered to it. While still soft, the glass-covered mould could then be rolled on a slab of stone in order to smooth or decorate it. Over the following 500 years, glass production centred on Alessandria, from where it spread to Italy. The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to around 650 BC. Instructions on how to make glass are contained in tablets from the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-626 BC).
The beginning of glassblowing
A major breakthrough in glassmaking was the discovery of glassblowing some time between 27 BC and AD 14, attributed to Syrian craftsmen. The long thin metal tube used in the blowing process has changed very little since then. In the last century BC, the ancient Romans then began blowing glass inside moulds, greatly increasing the variety of shapes possible for hollow glass items. The Romans also did much to spread glassmaking technology. With its conquests, trade relations, road building, and effective political and economical administration, the Roman Empire created the conditions for the flourishing of glassworks across western Europe and the Mediterranean. During the reign of the emperor Augustus, glass objects began to appear throughout Italy, in France, Germany and Switzerland. Roman glass has even been found as far afield as China, shipped there along the silk routes.
The Romans also began to use glass for architectural purposes, with the discovery of clear glass (through the introduction of manganese oxide) in Alexandria around AD 100. Cast glass windows thus began to appear in the most important buildings in Rome and the most luxurious villas of Herculaneum and Pompeii. During the late Roman empire, glass craftsmen began to migrate less, and eastern and western glassware gradually acquired more distinct characteristics. Alexandria remained the most important glassmaking area in the East, producing luxury glass items mainly for export. The world famous Portland Vase is perhaps the finest known example of Alexandrian skills.
In Rome's Western empire, the city of Cologne in the Rhineland developed as an important centre of the glassmaking industry. Then, the decline of the Roman Empire and culture slowed progress in the field of glassmaking techniques, particularly through the 5th century. Germanic glassware became less ornate, with craftsmen abandoning or not developing the decorating skills they had acquired.
note: This is an abbreviated and simplified version of the glass history on http://www.glassonline.com
