The beauty of ancient glassware

I always loved Roman glassware. It is such a fragile material and it is amazing to see such a variety of shapes and models on display in so many museums. 

Glass was first produced around 1600 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. To that effect, sand was mixed with salt, preferably natron as found in dry lake beds in Egypt. This mixture in the right proportions was heated in a kiln until it turned into glass. 

These rough glass chunks were acquired by craftsmen who melted them down and pressed them into molds, letting them cool off and harden to obtain the desired object. 

One of the earliest finds of glass ingots is known from the shipwreck of Uluburun. This ship went down in a storm in 1350 BC, i.e., shortly after 1600 BC when glass was first made. It yielded a precious cargo of all kinds including glass ingots colored with copper and cobalt (see: The flooded remains of Kekova Island and Uluburun). It must have been an extremely valuable part of the ship’s cargo. 

The oldest artifacts apparently were beads made of glass paste, generally by Phoenician artists going back to the 7^th-3^rd century BC found in Egypt. More recent Phoenician examples date from the 4^th-3^rd century BC exhibited at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. Typically, each bead shows a human head with big eyes and well-drawn facial details including a hairdo. 

At the small Airport Museum of Athens, there are glass beads from a necklace of the 5^th century BC decorated with the evil eye, retrieved from the local Twin Sanctuary. 

A Persian glass bowl was unearthed in Cuma, Italy, dating from 400-350 BC displayed at the British Museum in London. This means that the Persians understood the art of glass making, probably from Mesopotamian sources. 

Blown glass was a Roman invention from the 1^st century BC. This technique made it much easier to create objects as it required less time and less material. Where glassware initially was a product reserved for Egypt’s high society, it now became readily available to lower social classes. The items were more affordable and soon accessible to everyone all over the empire. As a result, archaeologists readily unearthed them in Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Cyprus, Italy, Libya, Tunisia, etc. The Römisch-Germanishes Museum in Cologne holds a rich and select assortment of artifacts, but many other museums offer rare examples also. 

The shapes and forms of the objects are endless: vases, jars, flasks, drinking glasses, pitchers, wine jugs, pyxides, perfume bottles, and even cinerary urns. A big cinerary glass urn from the 1^st-2^nd century AD is on display at the Bardo Museum, but the largest glass amphora was found in Olbia, dated to 150-80 BC, and is exhibited at the Altes Museum in Berlin. 

The most striking of all glassware and my personal favorites are the delicate blown glass vessels in the shape of a fish or galley. Also blue enameled vases, translucent and transparent ones, and bottles with fishnet decorations – all from the 1^st century AD discovered in Begram, Afghanistan. Of outstanding quality are the enameled and painted glass beakers made in Alexandria, Egypt, also found in Begram. The scenes are familiar as they represent Fighting Hoplites, an African hunt, and surprisingly, even the Rape of Europe, Ganymede and the Eagle. This impressive collection can be admired at the Musée Guimet in Paris.

Sadly, glassware rarely receives the attention it deserves because our eyes are mostly drawn towards larger works of art such as statues and reliefs of people and gods we are familiar with. However, it certainly is rewarding to pay attention to these fine and fragile objects next time around.