Changes

Glass has evolved throughout its history from an object of rare fascination, to having important decorative qualities, and to becoming critical to both art and daily use. Glass likely has its origin as a byproduct in the production of pottery or metals, as under high temperatures ceramic clays or metal production byproducts, including silica, may vitrify forming a glassy-layer.<ref>For information about the earliest history of glass production, see: Macfarlane, Alan, and Gerry Martin. 2002. <i>Glass: A World History</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</ref> Perhaps the earliest glass anywhere comes from the ancient Near East or Egypt, by roughly 3500 BC, when temperatures in kilns started reaching higher temperatures as kiln technologies improved.

Vitrified glazes also become popular in the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC), with tiles, ceramics, and wall decorations now made using this material.<ref>For a history of glass during the Late Bronze Age, see: Henderson 2013: 182.</ref> Perhaps more significantly for the history of glass is that true glass objects begin to develop and expand more rapidly in the Late Bronze Age , indicating that it no longer was simply an accidental byproduct of manufacturing. Very likely the technology needed for their production, including in the firing process and the utilization of alkaline products to create glass, were now well known. This includes sodium carbonate derived from plants that is used in glass production. In the Late Bronze Age, glass is now utilized to make cups and becomes a type of luxury object traded for by elites and perhaps household consumers, which increasingly had greater appetites for wealthy objects. The Uluburun Shipwreck, which had many rare finds, also contained the world’s earliest intact glass ingots, which were used to make glass objects.<ref>For information on the Uluburun Shipwreck and the discovery of complete glass ingots, see: Gordon, Stewart. 2015. <i>A History of the World in Sixteen Shipwrecks</i>. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, pg. 39. </ref>

The ingots simply indicate that glass was also sometimes made into a easy transportable form before being shaped into its final product. The shipwreck dates to around the 14th century BC and likely represents finds during a period of active trade in the Eastern Mediterranean between the powers in the Near East and the Aegean. As glass was considered a luxury, it is not surprising that a relatively large quantity of glass was found on the shipwreck. While glass technology improved, it was still an expensive product to make given the material and firing process required.

In the Neo-Assyrian period, roughly from the 9th to 7th centuries BC, colorless glass seems to have been invented, as the first instruction manual, written on a cuneiform tablet, was found in ancient Nineveh in modern day Iraq in the well-known Ashurbanipal library.<ref>For information on this text that describes the manufacturing technique, see: Moorey, P. R. S. 1999. <i>Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence.</i> Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.</ref> In the last half of the first millennium BC, during the Hellenistic period, glass technology improves even more with molds now being used to create larger pieces. <ref>For more information on Hellenistic glass production, see: Henderson 2013: 216.</ref> However, the most relevant invention was the development of glassblowing, which used a blow pipe on molten glass (Figure 3).<ref>For information on the history of glass blowing and its technical developments, see: Carter, C. Barry, and M. Grant Norton. 2013. <i>Ceramic Materials: Science and Engineering</i>. Second edition. New York: Springer.</ref> This technique made it much easier to create glass, making it now possible to spread its utilization and making it a much cheaper commodity.

What we see is that glassmaking had a long history from its earliest appearances as a likely accidental byproduct in the firing of objects. While initially it was a restrict medium, mostly used for imitation of precious objects, it became its own medium of art in the Late Bronze Age in the second half of the second millennium BC. By the late first millennium BC, the technologies of glass improved to allow it to become ubiquitous in regions along the Near East, Mediterranean world, Europe, and much of the Old World. The Romans, Sassanians, and Indian civilizations, in particular, helped to spread the use of glass. In the 17th century, new techniques of glass production allow it to become a product that was more industrialized, while making glass even easier and cheaper to make, including improving its production qualities.

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