History of glass

The history of glass-making can be traced back to 3500 BC Asia in Mesopotamia, however, they may have been producing second-rate copies of glass objects from Egypt, where this complex craft actually originated Other archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Egypt The earliest known glass objects, of the mid second millennium BC, were beads, perhaps initially created as the accidental by-products of metal-working (slags) or during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing. Glass products remained a luxury until the disasters that overtook the late Bronze Age civilizations seemingly brought glass-making to a halt

Development of glass technology in India may have begun in 1730 BC In ancient China, though, glass-making seems to have had a late start compared to ceramics and metal work From across the former Roman Empire archaeologists have recovered glass objects that were used in domestic, industrial and funerary contexts Anglo-Saxon glass has been found across England during archaeological excavations of both settlement and cemetery sites Glass in the Anglo-Saxon period was used in the manufacture of a range of objects including vessels, beads, windows and was even used in jewelry

Origins

Ancient Greek glass amphora from the Hellenistic period

Naturally occurring glass, especially the volcanic glass obsidian, has been used by many Stone Age societies across the globe for the production of sharp cutting tools and, due to its limited source areas, was extensively traded But in general, archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt. Because of Egypt's favorable environment for preservation, the majority of well-studied early glass is found there, although some of this is likely to have been imported The earliest known glass objects, of the mid third millennium BC, were beads, perhaps initially created as accidental by-products of metal-working (slags) or during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing.

During the Late Bronze Age in Egypt (eg, the Ahhotep "Treasure") and Western Asia (eg Megiddo) there was a rapid growth in glass-making technology Archaeological finds from this period include colored glass ingots, vessels (often colored and shaped in imitation of highly prized hardstone carvings in semi-precious stones) and the ubiquitous beads The alkali of Syrian and Egyptian glass was soda ash, sodium carbonate, which can be extracted from the ashes of many plants, notably halophile seashore plants: (see saltwort) The earliest vessels were 'core-formed', produced by winding a ductile rope of glass round a shaped core of sand and clay over a metal rod, then fusing it with repeated reheating

Threads of thin glass of different colors made with admixtures of oxides were subsequently wound around these to create patterns, which could be drawn into festoons by using metal raking tools The vessel would then be rolled smooth ('marvered') on a slab in order to press the decorative threads into its body Handles and feet were applied separately The rod was subsequently allowed to cool as the glass slowly annealed and was eventually removed from the center of the vessel, after which the core material was scraped out Glass shapes for inlays were also often created in moulds Much early glass production, however, relied on grinding techniques borrowed from stone working This meant that the glass was ground and carved in a cold state.

By the 15th century BC extensive glass production was occurring in Western Asia, Crete and Egypt and the Mycenaean Greek term, ku-wa-no-wo-ko-i, meaning "workers of lapis lazuli and glass" (written in Linear b syllabic script) is attested. It is thought the techniques and recipes required for the initial fusing of glass from raw materials was a closely guarded technological secret reserved for the large palace industries of powerful states Glass workers in other areas therefore relied on imports of pre-formed glass, often in the form of cast ingots such as those found on the Ulu Burun shipwreck off the coast of modern Turkey

An early 18th-century goblet with coats of arms in the District Museum in Tarnów is one of the highest (543 cm, 214 in) preserved examples of artistry of less known Lubaczów glass manufacturing factory. The goblet was almost entirely covered with a pattern of so-called carp scales and hand-engraved decoration.

Glass remained a luxury material, and the disasters that overtook Late Bronze Age civilizations seem to have brought glass-making to a halt It picked up again in its former sites, in Syria and Cyprus, in the 9th century BC, when the techniques for making colorless glass were discovered The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to ca 650 BC Instructions on how to make glass are contained in cuneiform tablets discovered in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal In Egypt glass-making did not revive until it was reintroduced in Ptolemaic Alexandria Core-formed vessels and beads were still widely produced, but other techniques came to the fore with experimentation and technological advancements During the Hellenistic period many new techniques of glass production were introduced and glass began to be used to make larger pieces, notably table wares Techniques developed during this period include 'slumping' viscous (but not fully molten) glass over a mould in order to form a dish and 'millefiori' (meaning 'thousand flowers') technique, where canes of multi-colored glass were sliced and the slices arranged together and fused in a mould to create a mosaic-like effect It was also during this period that colorless or decolored glass began to be prized and methods for achieving this effect were investigated more fully.

According to Pliny the Elder, Phoenician traders were the first to stumble upon glass manufacturing techniques at the site of the Belus River Georgius Agricola, in De re metallica, reported a traditional serendipitous "discovery" tale of familiar type:

"The tradition is that a merchant ship laden with nitrum being moored at this place, the merchants were preparing their meal on the beach, and not having stones to prop up their pots, they used lumps of nitrum from the ship, which fused and mixed with the sands of the shore, and there flowed streams of a new translucent liquid, and thus was the origin of glass.

This account is more a reflection of Roman experience of glass production, however, as white silica sand from this area was used in the production of glass within the Roman Empire due to its high purity levels During the 1st century BC glass blowing was discovered on the Syro-Judean coast, revolutionizing the industry Glass vessels were now inexpensive compared to pottery vessels A growth of the use of glass products occurred throughout the Roman world[citation needed] Glass became the Roman plastic, and glass containers produced in Alexandria[citation needed] spread throughout the Roman Empire With the discovery of clear glass (through the introduction of manganese dioxide), by glass blowers in Alexandria circa 100 AD, the Romans began to use glass for architectural purposes Cast glass windows, albeit with poor optical qualities, began to appear in the most important buildings in Rome and the most luxurious villas of Herculaneum and Pompeii Over the next 1,000 years, glass making and working continued and spread through southern Europe and beyond

History by culture

India

Indian development of glass technology in South Asia may have begun in 1730 BC. Evidence of this culture includes a red-brown glass bead along with a hoard of beads dating to that period, making it the earliest attested glass from the Indus Valley locations Glass discovered from later sites dating from 600–300 BC displays common colors.

Chalcolithic evidence of glass has been found in Hastinapur, India[14] Some of the texts which mention glass in India are the Shatapatha Brahmana and Vinaya Pitaka. However, the first unmistakable evidence in large quantities, dating from the 3rd century BC, has been uncovered from the archaeological site in Takshashila, Pakistan, with bangles, beads, small vessels, and tiles discovered in quantity.

By the 1st century AD, glass was being used for ornaments and casing in South Asia. Contact with the Greco-Roman world added newer techniques, and Indians artisans mastered several techniques of glass molding, decorating and coloring by the succeeding centuries. The Satavahana period of India also produced short cylinders of composite glass, including those displaying a lemon yellow matrix covered with green glass.

China

In Chinese history, glass played a peripheral role in the arts and crafts, when compared to ceramics and metal work. The limited archaeological distribution and use of glass objects are evidence of the rarity of the material Literary sources date the first manufacture of glass to the 5th century AD. However, the earliest archaeological evidence for glass manufacture in China comes from the late Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC to 221 BC)

Chinese learned to manufacture glass comparably later than the Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Indians Imported glass objects first reached China during the late Spring and Autumn period – early Warring States period (early 5th century BC), in the form of polychrome ‘eye beads’. These imports created the impetus for the production of indigenous glass beads

During the Han period (206 BC to 220 AD) the use of glass diversified The introduction of glass casting in this period encouraged the production of moulded objects, such as bi disks and other ritual objects. The Chinese glass objects from the Warring States period and Han Dynasty vary greatly in chemical composition from the imported glass objects The glasses from this period contain high levels of barium oxide (BaO) and lead, distinguishing them from the soda-lime-silica glasses of Western Asia and Mesopotamia. At the end of the Han Dynasty (AD 220), the lead-barium glass tradition declined, with glass production only resuming during the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

Romans

Romans learned to manufacture glass comparably later than Asians Glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, funerary and industrial contexts[24] Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions, initially concentrating on the production of intensely colored cast glass vessels

However, during the 1st century AD, the industry underwent rapid technical growth that saw the introduction of glass blowing and the dominance of colorless or ‘aqua’ glasses Production of raw glass was undertaken in geographically separate locations to the working of glass into finished vessels, and by the end of the 1st century AD large scale manufacturing, primarily in Alexandria, resulted in the establishment of glass as a commonly available material in the

Roman world

Islamic world

Islamic glass continued the achievements of pre-Islamic cultures, especially the Sasanian glass of Persia The Arab poet al-Buhturi (820–897) described the clarity of such glass, "Its color hides the glass as if it is standing in it without a container". In the 8th century, the Persian chemist Jābir ibn Hayyān (Geber) described 46 recipes for producing colored glass in Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna (The Book of the Hidden Pearl), in addition to 12 recipes inserted by al-Marrakishi in a later edition of the book. By the 11th century, clear glass mirrors were being produced in Arab Islamic Spain

Medieval Europe

A 16th-century stained glass window

The Roman tradition of very fine glassmaking did not continue in the Middle Ages, and Anglo-Saxon glass and other regional traditions were mainly functional pieces, mostly somewhat crude forest glass The claw beaker was popular as a relatively easy to make but impressive vessel that exploited the unique potential of glass Only at the end of the period did European glass vessels once again become very fine in quality, imitating those imported from the Islamic world

Glass objects from the 7th and 8th centuries have been found on the island of Torcello near Venice These form an important link between Roman times and the later importance of that city in the production of the material Around 1000 AD, an important technical breakthrough was made in Northern Europe when soda glass, produced from white pebbles and burnt vegetation was replaced by glass made from a much more readily available material: potash obtained from wood ashes From this point on, northern glass differed significantly from that made in the Mediterranean area, where soda remained in common use.

Until the 12th century, stained glass – glass to which metallic or other impurities had been added for coloring – was not widely used, but it rapidly became an important medium for Romanesque art and especially Gothic art Almost all survivals are in church buildings, but it was also used in grand secular buildings The 11th century saw the emergence in Germany of new ways of making sheet glass by blowing spheres The spheres were swung out to form cylinders and then cut while still hot, after which the sheets were flattened This technique was perfected in 13th century Venice The Crown glass process was used up to the mid-19th century In this process, the glassblower would spin approximately 9 pounds (4 kg) of molten glass at the end of a rod until it flattened into a disk approximately 5 feet (15 m) in diameter The disk would then be cut into panes Domestic glass vessels in late medieval Northern Europe are known as Forest glass

Anglo-Saxon world

Anglo-Saxon glass has been found across England during archaeological excavations of both settlement and cemetery sites Glass in the Anglo-Saxon period was used in the manufacture of a range of objects including vessels, beads, windows and was even used in jewelry In the 5th century AD with the Roman departure from Britain, there were also considerable changes in the usage of glass Excavation of Romano-British sites have revealed plentiful amounts of glass but, in contrast, the amount recovered from 5th century and later Anglo-Saxon sites is minuscule

The majority of complete vessels and assemblages of beads come from the excavations of early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, but a change in burial rites in the late 7th century affected the recovery of glass, as Christian Anglo-Saxons were buried with fewer grave goods, and glass is rarely found From the late 7th century onwards, window glass is found more frequently This is directly related to the introduction of Christianity and the construction of churches and monasteries There are a few Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical[34] literary sources that mention the production and use of glass, although these relate to window glass used in ecclesiastical buildings Glass was also used by the Anglo-Saxons in their jewelry, both as enamel or as cut glass insets

Murano

The center for luxury Italian glassmaking from the 14th century was the island of Murano, which developed many new techniques and became the center of a lucrative export trade in dinnerware, mirrors, and other items What made Venetian Murano glass significantly different was that the local quartz pebbles were almost pure silica, and were ground into a fine clear sand that was combined with soda ash obtained from the Levant, for which the Venetians held the sole monopoly The clearest and finest glass is tinted in two ways: firstly, a natural coloring agent is ground and melted with the glass Many of these coloring agents still exist today; for a list of coloring agents, see below Black glass was called obsidianus after obsidian stone A second method is apparently to produce a black glass which, when held to the light, will show the true color that this glass will give to another glass when used as a dye

The Venetian ability to produce this superior form of glass resulted in a trade advantage over other glass producing lands Murano’s reputation as a center for glassmaking was born when the Venetian Republic, fearing fire might burn down the city’s mostly wood buildings, ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano in 1291 Murano's glassmakers were soon the island’s most prominent citizens Glassmakers were not allowed to leave the Republic Many took a risk and set up glass furnaces in surrounding cities and as far afield as England and the Netherlands

Bohemia

Bohemian glass, or Bohemia crystal, is a decorative glass produced in regions of Bohemia and Silesia, now in the current state of the Czech Republic, since the 13th century Oldest archaeology excavations of glass-making sites date to around 1250 and are located in the Lusatian Mountains of Northern Bohemia Most notable sites of glass-making throughout the ages are Skalice (German: Langenau), Kamenický Šenov (German: Steinschönau) and Nový Bor (German: Haida) Both Nový Bor and Kamenický Šenov have their own Glass Museums with many items dating since around 1600 It was especially outstanding in its manufacture of glass in high Baroque style from 1685 to 1750 In the 17th century, Caspar Lehmann, gem cutter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, adapted to glass the technique of gem engraving with copper and bronze wheels.

Source: Wikipedia

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