The History of Glass (BC)

5000 BC

Natural glass according to ancient records has existed since the beginning of time when it was formed from high-temperature phenomena like lightning strikes and then cool and then when it cools and solidifies rapidly. It was believed Stone-Age men used cutting tools made of obsidian, a natural glass of volcanic origin and tektites which are naturally formed glasses of extra-terrestrial.

According to the ancient-Roman historian Pliny (AD 23-79), Phoenician merchants transporting stone actually discovered glass in the region of Syria around 5000 BC. Pliny tells how the merchants, after landing, rested cooking pots on blocks of nitrate placed by their fire. With the intense heat of the fire, the blocks eventually melted and mixed with the sand of the beach to form an opaque liquid.

3500 BC

One of the earliest man-made glass objects have been dated back to around 3500BC in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia. In central Mesopotamia, around the 3rd millennium, basic raw materials of glass were being used to produce glazes on pots and vases.

The discovery may have been coincidental, with calciferous sand finding its way into an overheated kiln and combining with soda to form a coloured glaze on the ceramics. However, it was Phoenician merchants and sailors who spread the new art along the coasts of the Mediterranean.

16th Century BC

The oldest fragments of glass vases however, date back to the 16th century BC and were found in Mesopotamia. Hollow glass production was also evolving around this time in Egypt, and there is evidence of other ancient glassmaking activities emerging independently in Mycenae (Greece), China and North Tyrol.

1500 BC

Around and after 1500 BC, it has been know of Egyptian craftsmen to have been developing a method to produce glass pots by dipping a core mould of compacted sand into molten glass and then turning the mould so that molten glass would stick to it. Glass-covered mould could be rolled on a slab of stone while it was still soft to smooth and decorate it.

There are three vases bearing the name of Pharaoh Thoutmosis III (1504 – 1450 BC) that are known to be the earliest examples of Egyptian glassware. It was considered that Pharaoh brought glassmakers to Egypt as prisoners following a successful military campaign in Asia.

9th Century BC

There is little evidence of further evolution until the 9th century BC, when glassmaking revived in Mesopotamia. Over the following 500 years, glass production centred on Alessandria, from where it is thought to have spread to Italy.

650 BC

The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to around 650 BC. Instructions on how to make glass are contained in tablets from the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-626 BC).

The History of Glass (Next 1000 Years)

If you read my previous post on the history of glass, you'll want to read this post as we continue the journey on the history of glass.

27 BC – 14 AD

The biggest breakthrough in glass making came between 27 BC and 14 AD recognised by Syrian craftsmen from the Sidon-Babylon area who developed the blowing process (which, hasn't change greatly today) from the ancient Romans, who began blowing glass inside moulds, creating a variety of shapes for hollow glass items.

100 AD

We have a lot to thank the Romans when it comes to glass because it was them who spread glassmaking technology across Western Europe and the Mediterranean. During the reign of the emperor Augustus, glass objects began to appear throughout Italy, in France, Germany and Switzerland and there is even evidence of Roman glass found as far as China.
It seemed that Romans used glass for architectural purposes with the discovery of clear glass in Alexandria around 100 AD and remained the most important glassmaking area in the East, producing luxury glass items mainly for export. The world famous Portland Vase is perhaps the finest known example of Alexandrian skills.
In Rome's Western empire, the city of Köln in the Rhineland developed as the hub of the glassmaking industry, adopting, however, mainly eastern techniques. Then, the decline of the Roman Empire and culture slowed progress in the field of glassmaking techniques, particularly through the 5th century.

7th-8th Century

Archaeological excavations on the island of Torcello near Venice, Italy, have unearthed objects from the late 7th and early 8th centuries which bear witness to the transition from ancient to early Middle Ages production of glass.

1000

As raw materials became increasingly more difficult to import, significant changes in European glass making where happing as soda glass was replaced by glass made from potash obtained from the burning of trees. At this point, glass made north of the Alps began to differ from glass made in the Mediterranean area, with Italy, for example, sticking to soda ash as its dominant raw material.

The History of Glass 11th – 16th Century

Hope you're enjoying the journey so far as we take a look today on the history of glass between the 11th and 16th century.

11th Century

It seemed that Germans wanted to get in on the action of glassmaking during the 11th century when they produced glass sheets.
Glass sheets were made by blowing a hollow glass sphere and swinging it vertically. Gravity would pull the glass into a cylindrical pod, measuring around 3 metres long and 45cm wide. While still hot, the ends of the pod were cut off and the resulting cylinder cut lengthways and laid flat.

Other types of sheet glass included crown glass, relatively common across Western Europe, made from a glass ball that was blown and opened outwards on the opposite side of the pipe. Spinning the semi-molten ball then caused it to flatten and increase in size, but only up to a limited diameter. The panes thus created would then be joined with lead strips and pieced together to create windows. However, glazing was still considered quite a luxury up until the late Middle Ages.

1271

During the Middle Ages, Venice was the centre of the glassmaking world with more than 8,000 craftsmen working in the industry there at one point.

1291

Glassmaking was ordered to transfer to the island of Murano due to frequent fires caused by the furnaces in Venice (where most of glass making took place until the end of the 13th Century). The move made it easier to avoid glassmaking skills or secrets exported.

14th Century

Another important Italian glassmaking industry developed at Altare, near Genoa during the 14th century, and its importance lies largely in the fact that it was not subject to the strict statutes of Venice as regards the exporting of glass working skills. Thus, during the 16th century, craftsmen from Altare helped extend the new styles and techniques of Italian glass to other parts of Europe, particularly France.

15th Century

In the second half of the 15th century, the craftsmen of Murano started using quartz sand and potash made from sea plants to produce particularly pure crystal.

16th Century

By the end of the 16th century, 3,000 of the island's 7,000 inhabitants were involved in some way in the glassmaking industry.

The History of Glass (Other Countries)

We continue with a fourth part to our history of glass journey as we start on 1674. Hope you're enjoying the ride so far.

1674

George Ravenscroft (1618-1681) was an English glassmaker who developed the lead crystal in 1674. He had been commissioned to find an alternative to the Venetian crystal produced in Murano. By using higher proportions of lead oxide instead of potash, he succeeded in producing a brilliant glass with a high refractive index which was very well suited for deep cutting and engraving.

1688

A new process of developing plate glass was founded in France in 1688 that initially was made for mirrors. The molten glass was poured onto a special table and rolled out flat. After cooling, the plate glass was ground on large round tables by means of rotating cast iron discs and increasingly fine abrasive sands, and then polished using felt disks. The result of this "plate pouring" process was flat glass with good optical transmission qualities. When coated on one side with a reflective, low melting metal, high-quality mirrors could be produced.

Industrial Revolution

It was not until the latter stages of the Industrial Revolution, however, that mechanical technology for mass production and in-depth scientific research into the relationship between the composition of glass and its physical qualities began to appear in the industry.

Late 19th Century

Otto Schott (1851-1935) was a key figure and one of the forefathers of modern glass from Germany who used scientific methods to study the effects of numerous chemical elements on the optical and thermal properties of glass. Schott teamed up with Ernst Abbe (1840-1905), a professor at the University of Jena and joint owner of the Carl Zeiss firm, to make significant technological advances.

Friedrich Siemens was another major contributor in the evolution of mass production and invented the tank furnace, rapidly replacing the old pot furnace. This allowed the continuous production of far greater quantities of molten glass.

The History of Glass: 1900-1959

1900-1925

Towards the end of the 19th century, the American engineer Michael Owens (1859-1923) invented an automatic bottle blowing machine which only arrived in Europe after the turn of the century. Owens was backed financially by E.D.L. Libbey, owner of the Libbey Glass Co. of Toledo, Ohio. By the year 1920, in the United States, there were around 200 automatic Owens Libbey Suction Blow machines operating. In Europe, smaller, more versatile machines from companies like O'Neill, Miller and Lynch were also popular.

1905-1914

Belgium got involved around this period with a Belgian named Fourcault who produced flat glass which was a real innovation in 1905 but, commercial got under way in 1914.

Emil Bicheroux developed a process whereby molten glass was poured from a pot directly through two rollers. Like the Fourcault method, this resulted in glass with a more even thickness, and made grinding and polishing easier and more economical.

1910

Edouard Benedictus was a French scientist who developed Triplex which was an off-shoot of evolution in flat glass to strength glass by means of lamination, by inserting a celluloid material layer between two sheets of glass.

1917

In America, Colburn developed another method for drawing sheet glass. The process was further improved with the support of the US firm Libbey-Owens and was first used for commercial production in 1917.

1928

The Pittsburgh process, developed by the American Pennvernon and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (PPG), combined and enhanced the main features of the Fourcault and Libbey-Owens processes, and has been in use since 1928.

1959

The float process developed after the Second World War by Britain's Pilkington Brothers Ltd., and introduced in 1959, combined the brilliant finish of sheet glass with the optical qualities of plate glass.