Glassmaking originated in the Middle East. According to the first-century Roman historian Pliny the technique was discovered around five thousand years ago by Phoenician traders on the Mediterranean coast. A crew of traders camping on the beach rested their cooking pots on bricks of natron, a sodium-carbonate-based mineral that they were transporting, and noticed that vitreous strips were formed when the heated mineral fused together with sand.
玻璃工藝的誕生在中東，根據西元一世紀的羅馬史學家普林尼的記載，早在五千年前，腓尼基的商人在地中海沿岸煮食食物時，將船上載運的碳酸鈉拿來當墊鍋的磚頭，意外地，經過高溫融化的碳酸鈉和海砂混合後，在沙地上流出了一條晶亮的玻璃來。