James Owen
for National Geographic News

June 16, 2005
Glass was a scarce and highly valued commodity in ancient times, so those who knew how to make it possessed a powerful technology.

Glass fragments unearthed in modern-day Iraq suggest that glassmaking began around 1500 B.C. in Mesopotamia and was kept a closely guarded secret for many centuries. Or so it was thought.

Now a new study suggests the ancient Egyptians mastered the art of glassmaking very soon after the Mesopotamians, using the technology to extend their influence throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The findings are published tomorrow in the journal Science.

Artifacts unearthed in Egypt's eastern Nile Delta show glass was made there from raw materials around 1250 B.C. The artifacts were found at the site of Pharaoh Ramses II's capital city. The remains reveal the earliest known glassmaking site anywhere in the world and the only one dating from the Bronze Age.

The finds also show for the first time the methods used to make early glass.

"This is the first site we can put our finger on and say, This is where they did it, and this is how they did it," said study co-author Thilo Rehren, professor of archaeological materials and technologies at University College London.

Rehren added that the next earliest known glassworks, in Rhodes, Greece, dates to around 200 B.C.—more than a thousand years after the ancient Egyptian glassworks.

Royal City

The glassmaking equipment and material was identified late last year following three years of excavations at Qantir, site of the ancient royal city of Piramesses. The finds date to the time of Ramses II, who reigned when Egypt was a major imperial power.

The artifacts reveal a two-stage manufacturing process. Raw materials, including silica and plant ash, were heated inside ovoid vessels that might have been recycled beer jars. The mixture was then crushed and washed before being colored and melted a second time in cylindrical molds to form round, glass ingots.

Rehren said these ingots would have been transported to workshops where skilled craftsmen made glass perfume bottles and other decorative items, such as inlays for furniture and luxury ornaments.

"Many people thought Egyptians weren't capable of making their own glass but got the finished glass chunks from Mesopotamia," Rehren said. "We can say that within 200 years [of the origination of glassmaking in Mesopotamia] the Egyptians were well capable of making their own glass, and not just any glass but difficult-to-make red glass."

Red glasses, which use copper-based colorants, require a high level of technical know-how, according to Caroline M. Jackson, a senior lecturer in archaeology at Sheffield University, England.

Other colors produced during the Late Bronze Age (1600 to 1100 B.C.) ranged from purple and cobalt blue to yellow and white.

Jackson, who wasn't involved with the study, said the authors "convincingly show that the Egyptians were making their own glass in large specialized facilities that were under royal control."

Vivid Colors

Jackson also noted that glass was difficult to work with and complicated to produce, yet available in vivid colors. As such, it likely played an important political role in the Mediterranean and Middle East during this period.

Glass manufacture at a royal city like Piramesses isn't surprising, she added, because glass was an elite material used to enhance power, status, and political allegiances.

Large numbers of colored glass ingots were discovered among the cargo of a Late Bronze Age shipwreck that was excavated off southern Turkey from 1984 to 1994. Those ingots were found to match the internal size and shape of glass molds excavated at Qantir. This, the researchers say, demonstrates the importance of such ingots in international trade in the ancient world.

Furthermore, the chemical composition of glass vessels, plaques, and inlays found at high-status archaeological sites throughout the Mediterranean matches that of the Qantir ingots, suggesting Egypt as the country of origin.

Rehren, the study's co-author, said the material wouldn't have been traded in the traditional sense. Rather, glass was used as a kind of diplomatic currency. For instance, Ramses II might have exchanged glass objects with his governors in territories abroad and with foreign rulers.

"Glass wasn't important practically but important emotionally and statuswise," Rehren noted. "There's no money being exchanged. But you can impress someone by giving them a glass offering."

Rehren compared the political clout of glass in ancient Egypt to that of nuclear power today. "You can't buy nuclear power. You have to be good pals with the guys who have it," he said. "You acquire nuclear capability through a political framework of alliances and friendships."

Jackson, the Sheffield University archaeologist, said the Qantir finds suggest that there was an Egyptian monopoly not only on the exchange of luxury glass but also on the diplomatic currency that glassmaking technology offered its rulers.

The new study, she added, "reinforces and reappraises the role of glass both within Egyptian society and as an elite material that was exported from Egypt to the Mediterranean world."

First, we have...

quote:

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Glass fragments unearthed in modern-day Iraq suggest that glassmaking began around 1500 B.C. in Mesopotamia and was kept a closely guarded secret for many centuries. Or so it was thought.

Now a new study suggests the ancient Egyptians mastered the art of glassmaking very soon after the Mesopotamians, using the technology to extend their influence throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

---

Then, here:

quote:

---

Artifacts unearthed in Egypt's eastern Nile Delta show glass was made there from raw materials around 1250 B.C. The artifacts were found at the site of Pharaoh Ramses II's capital city. The remains reveal the earliest known glassmaking site anywhere in the world and the only one dating from the Bronze Age....

Rehren added that the next earliest known glassworks, in Rhodes, Greece, dates to around 200 B.C.—more than a thousand years after the ancient Egyptian glassworks...

Red glasses, which use copper-based colorants, require a high level of technical know-how, according to Caroline M. Jackson, a senior lecturer in archaeology at Sheffield University, England.

Other colors produced during the Late Bronze Age (1600 to 1100 B.C.) ranged from purple and cobalt blue to yellow and white...

Furthermore, the chemical composition of glass vessels, plaques, and inlays found at high-status archaeological sites throughout the Mediterranean matches that of the Qantir ingots, suggesting Egypt as the country of origin.

---

Only to revert back to this:

quote:

---

"Many people thought Egyptians weren't capable of making their own glass but got the finished glass chunks from Mesopotamia," Rehren said. "We can say that within 200 years [of the origination of glassmaking in Mesopotamia] the Egyptians were well capable of making their own glass, and not just any glass but difficult-to-make red glass."

---

What may be one of the earliest glassmaking sites in ancient Egypt has
been uncovered in the eastern Nile Delta.

Evidence at Qantir-Piramesses indicates that glass was made there out of
raw materials as early as 1250 B.C., researchers from England and
Germany report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The reworking of already made glass into finished goods has been
documented at ancient sites in the Middle East and Egypt, but the new
report adds evidence for primary glass production at this location.

Thilo Rehren of University College, London, and Edgar B. Pusch of
Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany, report finding a large number
of crucibles with remains of glass inside.

Glass was made using finely crushed quartz powder which was melted with
other materials inside the ceramic crucibles, which then were broken to
get the glass out, they reported.

The glass ingots "would then have been transported to other, artistic
workshops where they were re-melted and worked into objects," Pusch and
Rehren reported.

Much of the glass produced at Qantir-Piramesses was red, produced using
copper in a complex process, and some of it was blue or colorless.

A large shipment of glass ingots has been found in an ancient shipwreck
off the coast of Turkey. The wreck predates the materials found at
Qantir-Piramesses, but the ingots are similar in size and shape to the
crucibles found at the Egyptian site.

Fragments of similar crucibles have also been found in Egypt at
el-Amarna and Lisht, Rehren and Pusch noted.

Caroline M. Jackson of the University of Sheffield in England called the
new report "highly significant."

Jackson, who was not part of the research team, said, "Rehren and Pusch
convincingly show that the Egyptians were making their own glass in
large, specialized facilities."

In a commentary accompanying their report, Jackson says their analysis
reinforces the role of glass in Egypt "as an elite material that was
exported from Egypt to the Mediterranean world."

Bruce Bower

When pharaohs ruled Egypt, high-status groups around the Mediterranean exchanged fancy glass items to cement political alliances. New archaeological finds indicate that by about 3,250 years ago, Egypt had become a major glass producer and was shipping the valuable material throughout the region for reworking by local artisans.

GLASS HALF-FULL. Ancient Egyptians heated glass in a ceramic crucible that's been partially recovered. Glass ingots (inset) from a Bronze Age shipwreck near Turkey fit Egyptian molds.
Science

This discovery settles a more-than-century-old debate over whether ancient Egyptians manufactured raw glass themselves or imported it from Mesopotamia, say Thilo Rehren of University College London and Edgar B. Pusch of the Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim in Germany in the June 17 Science.

The oldest-known glass remains come from a 3,500-year-old Mesopotamian site, which some researchers took as an indicator that ancient Egypt's glass depot was located there. However, excavations at Qantir, a village on the eastern Nile Delta, have yielded remnants of a glassmaking factory in operation just after that time, the two archaeologists report.

"Rehren and Pusch convincingly show that the Egyptians were making their own glass in large, specialized facilities that were under royal control," remarks archaeologist Caroline M. Jackson of the University of Sheffield in England, in a commentary published with the new report.

Workers at Qantir have so far uncovered pieces of hundreds of pottery containers, some with glass chunks attached to them. Other finds include waste products from glass production. Chemical analyses of these materials provided data about glass-making ingredients used at the site.

This evidence reflects a two-stage glassmaking process, the scientists assert. In the first stage, Egyptians crushed quartz pebbles into an alkali-rich plant ash and heated the mixture at relatively low temperatures in small clay vessels that were probably recycled beer jars. Next, they removed the resulting glassy material from the jars and ground it into powder, then cleaned and colored it red or blue with metal oxides.

In the second stage, workers poured this powder through clay funnels into ceramic crucibles and melted it at high temperatures. After cooling, they broke the crucibles to remove puck-shaped glass ingots.

Rehren and Pusch propose that Egyptians exported these ingots to workshops throughout the Mediterranean, where artisans reheated the glass and fashioned it into decorative items. The chemical composition of glass vessels and other artifacts found at various elite Mediterranean sites dating to around the time of Rameses II matches that of the Egyptian ingots, Jackson points out.

Indirect evidence of ancient Egyptian glassmaking also exists. For example, at the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna, archaeologists found ceramic vessels from more than 3,300 years ago that may have served as ingot molds. Also, a Bronze Age shipwreck discovered off Turkey's coast in 1987 contained glass ingots fitting the dimensions of the Amarna containers.

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