With a history of 5,000 years, I believe that you’ll agree that it’s best to begin our journey of glass discovery with the beginning of glass!

You may wonder… how was glass created? Did ancient peoples use glass as we do today?

Let’s put it in perspective. At the time that glass was first created in the 3rd millennium…

• the Chinese recorded sight of a comet
• indoor plumbing and sewage was used by peoples of the Indus Valley – the largest ancient civilization in the world
• the bow and arrow was used in warfare
• and the oldest known evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke was discovered at a burial site in present-day Romania (had to provide that tidbit!)

Legend surrounds the origins of glass, a creation of art, magic and mystery!

Little is known about the place and date of the first glass production. Pliny the Elder suggested that the miraculous event occurred on the Phoenician coast, in modern-day Lebanon, which became one of the most important glass-making centres. Pliny wrote,

“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…”

Produced from a mixture of silica-sand, lime and soda, it’s believed that the first intentionally-created glass was used as a glaze on ceramics, beads, jewelry, amulets and other small objects earlier than 3000 BCE. Egyptian glass beads, which held spiritual and magical properties, were the finest of the ancient world. Solid glass beads have been found in Egypt dating from 4000 BCE. According to bead experts Chris and Janie Filstrup, very simple beads consisting of a true glass glaze over a clay or stone cane have been discovered in Egypt dating back to 12,000 BCE.

The new material joined other vitreous glazes, like faience (opaque glaze applied over earthenware) as a less expensive substitute for rare and precious stones, such as lapis lazuli.

The first glass vessels appeared sometime after the reign of Egypt’s first Queen, Hatsheput. Not until the reign of Tuthmosis I in the New Kingdom, however, is there any record of glass vessels being made. Production of glass vessels started in Egypt as a royal monopoly serving the court, top dignitaries and the high priesthood.

 This small vessel, an Amphoriskos, would likely have once held perfumed oil.

It’s believed that the Egyptians learned glassmaking from their Asiatic neighbours; they would have come across advanced centres of glass manufacture and likely brought back local craftsmen, probably as slaves taken during Egyptian military campaigns. Egyptian workshops not only produced a variety of wares for the royal court and aristocrats who could afford such luxuries, they also exported large quantities of raw glass.

Methods of glass manufacture would have remained a mystery but for archaeological research and the surviving glass vessels themselves.

This glass perfume vase was considered a luxurious version of those made of terracotta for mass production.

Glass making eventually evolved into a sophisticated art in Egypt, with shapes and hues becoming increasingly intricate. To the basic formula of sand or silica, soda and lime, cobalt was added to create a blue shade, copper for green, tin was used to produce a milky white, while the addition of gold created red. Incorporating gold into a formula to enhance the beauty of glass indicates that glass was not merely considered a substitute for something precious, but was valuable in its own right.

Coming Soon: Makeup, Jewelry, and Perfumed Unguents, oh my!