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EGYPTIAN GLASS

Little is known about man's first efforts to make glass. As far back as 2,500 B.C., amulets and solid glass beads were made in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). About 1,000 years later, Egyptians also began making glass (Zerwick 15). This paper will discuss glass making and the glass artwork of ancient Egypt. The research will show that the Egyptians were among the first to use glass in their art and culture.

There is little evidence of extensive glass manufacture in Egypt before the New Kingdom (1,540 B.C.). Prior to that time, glass had been used in Egypt primarily as a glaze for beads. The next step in the evolution of glass in Egypt was the discovery of faience: "Faience is a mixture of quartz sand and an alkaline substance covered by a vitreous glaze which, once mixed, can then be molded, cast, or even thrown on a wheel" (Battie 16). Faience was discovered and used in Egypt before glass.

one of the glass pieces which was made in ancient Egypt is a glass pendant which is shaped like a small flask and has a starburst-like circular design on it. That piece was made in approximately 1,500 B.C., well before the famous Tutankahamun period of Egyptian art. By the time of Tutankahamun's reign, jewelry which combined glass with gold and gemstones was being made for most of the Egyptian royalty. Glass was probably as precious as real gemstones in ancient Egypt because only very wealthy Egyptians owned glass jewelry.

By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries B.C., although the pyramids had already become ancient monuments in Egyptian

culture, the earliest hollow glass vessels were being made in Egypt. Before the sixteenth century B.C., Egyptians had only made the glass paste (which they used to inlay ivory and gold objects, like the famous throne of Tutankahamun, that also featured calcite, faience, and multicolored glass pieces) and glass beads. Other inlays which include glass in ancient Egypt are found in the temple wall...

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EGYPTIAN GLASS. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:50, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689489.html