When was glass first created?
History of glass
Glass remained a luxury material, and the disasters that overtook Late Bronze Age civilizations seem to have brought glass-making to a halt. It picked up again in its former sites, Syria and Cyprus, in the 9th century BC, when the techniques for making colorless glass were discovered. The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to ca. 650 BC. Instructions on how to make glass are contained in cuneiform tablets discovered in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. In Egypt glass-making did not revive until it was reintroduced in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Core-formed vessels and beads were still widely produced, but other techniques came to the fore with experimentation and technological advancements. During the Hellenistic period many new techniques of glass production were introduced and glass began to be used to make larger pieces, notably table wares. Techniques developed during this period include 'slumping' viscous (but not fully molten) glass over a mould in order to form a dish and 'millefiori' (meaning 'thousand flowers') technique, where canes of multicolored glass were sliced and the slices arranged together and fused in a mould to create a mosaic-like effect. It was also during this period that colorless or decolored glass began to be prized and methods for achieving this effect were investigated more fully.
Glasses
Robert Grosseteste's treatise "De iride" ("On the Rainbow"), written between 1220 and 1235, mentions using optics to "read the smallest letters at incredible distances". A few years later in 1262, Roger Bacon is also known to have written on the magnifying properties of lenses.
The development of the first eyeglasses took place in Northern Italy in the second half of the 13th century.
History of glass
Chalcolithic evidence of glass has been found in Hastinapur, India. 
Some of the texts which mention glass in India are the "Shatapatha Brahmana" and "Vinaya Pitaka". However, the first unmistakable evidence in large quantities, dating from the 3rd century BC, has been uncovered from the archaeological site in Takshashila, now in Pakistan, with bangles, beads, small vessels, and tiles discovered in quantity.
Byzantine glass
In the middle Byzantine period, Byzantine glass-makers adopted silver-staining techniques from the Arab world. Silver-stained glass is created by applying a metallic compound, mixed with a "carrier" of clay or ochre to the surface of the glass object, then the glass is fired below the softening point of the glass. This process results in the breakdown of the smeared compound and its transition into the body of the glass object, creating a "stained" effect. Depending on the makeup of the compound and the "carrier" this process can lead to a wide array of colors. While the Arabs began creating silver-stained glass objects in the late eighth century in Egypt, the first Byzantine silver-stained object has been dated to the ninth century. The most common items featuring Byzantine silver-stain are simple glass bracelets, dating from the tenth to thirteenth centuries, and being discovered across the Byzantine world, from Greece to Anatolia. The most famous example of Byzantine silver-staining is the interior inscription of the beautiful San Marco bowl, dated to the "Macedonian Renaissance" of the tenth century. Several fragments of silver-stained window glass have been discovered. Although silver staining was practiced by the Byzantines, silver-stained works were not as ubiquitous in Byzantium as they were to become in late Medieval Europe. However, the widespread use of silver-staining in Byzantium could in part explain the transmission of silver-stain technique from the Arab world to Western Europe.
Glass float
The earliest evidence of glass floats being used by fishermen comes from Norway in 1844 where glass floats were on gill nets in the great cod fisheries in Lofoten. By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan. Japan started using the glass floats as early as 1910. Today, most of the remaining glass floats originated in Japan because it had a large deep sea fishing industry which made extensive use of the floats; some made by Taiwan, Korea and China. In Japanese, the floats are variably known as or .
History of optics
The earliest known lenses were made from polished crystal, often quartz, and have been dated as early as 750 BC for Assyrian lenses such as the Layard / Nimrud lens. There are many similar lenses from ancient Egypt, Greece and Babylon. The ancient Romans and Greeks filled glass spheres with water to make lenses.
Engraved gem
Cameo glass was invented by the Romans in about 30BC to imitate engraved hardstone cameos, with the advantage that consistent layering could be achieved even on round vessels – impossible with natural gemstones. It was however very difficult to manufacture and surviving pieces, mostly famously the Portland Vase, are actually much rarer than Roman gemstone cameos. The technique was revived in the 18th and especially 19th centuries in England and elsewhere, and was most effectively used in French Art Nouveau glass that made no attempt to follow classical styles.
Glass milk bottle
Lewis P. Whiteman held the first patent for a glass milk bottle with a small glass lid and a tin clip. Following this, the next earliest patent is for a milk bottle with a dome-type tin cap and was granted in September 23, 1884 to Whiteman's brother, Abram V. Whiteman. The Whiteman brothers produced milk bottles based on these specifications at the Warren Glass Works Company in Cumberland, Maryland and sold them through their New York sales office.
Roman glass
Archaeological evidence for glass making during the Roman period is scarce, but by drawing comparisons with the later Islamic and Byzantine periods, it is clear that glass making was a significant industry. By the end of the Roman period glass was being produced in large quantities contained in tanks situated inside highly specialised furnaces, as the 8-tonne glass slab recovered from Bet She'arim illustrates. These workshops could produce many tonnes of raw glass in a single furnace firing, and although this firing might have taken weeks, a single primary workshop could potentially supply multiple secondary glass working sites. It is therefore thought that raw glass production was centred around a relatively small number of workshops, where glass was produced on a large scale and then broken into chunks. There is only limited evidence for local glass making, and only in context of window glass. The development of this large-scale industry is not fully understood, but Pliny's Natural History (36, 194), in addition to evidence for the first use of molten glass in the mid-1st century AD, indicates that furnace technologies experienced marked development during the early-to-mid-1st century AD, in tandem with the expansion of glass production.
Flexible glass
The story of the sad fate of the inventor of unbreakable glass (vitrum flexile) at the hands of Tiberius (42 BC – 37 AD) was first related by two more-or-less contemporary compilers, namely Petronius (c. 27–66 AD, "Satyricon" 51) and Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD, Naturalis Historia XXXVI.lxvi.195). Pliny apparently did not believe in vitrum flexile, remarking that the story is, "more frequently told than it is reliable". Cassius Dio (c. AD 150–235, Historia Romana 57.21.7) also told a similar story, writing that ‘an architect whose name no one knows’ whom Tiberius had exiled out of jealousy for his skill, ‘approached him to crave pardon, and while doing so purposely let fall a crystal goblet; and though it was bruised in some way or shattered, yet by passing his hands over it he promptly exhibited it whole once more. For this he hoped to obtain pardon, but instead the emperor put him to death.’ The story was picked up and retold by Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636, Etymologiae XVI.16.6, ‘De vitro’). Subsequently the 13th century collection of technical recipes by the pseudo-Heraclius included this story, in the section treating glass recipes, using Isidore’s own words (De coloribus et artibus Romanorum III.vi [256]). This is thus an example of ‘technical knowledge’ wending its way from historical gossip (Petronius), to a technical encyclopaedia (Pliny, with reservations), and then via a philological text (Isidore) to a collection of practical craft recipes (pseudo-Heraclius).
Roman glass
As a result of these factors, the cost of production was reduced and glass became available for a wider section of society in a growing variety of forms. By the mid-1st century AD this meant that glass vessels had moved from a valuable, high-status commodity, to a material commonly available: "a [glass] drinking cup could be bought for a copper coin" (Strabo, Geographica XVI.2). This growth also saw the production of the first glass tesserae for mosaics, and the first window glass, as furnace technology improved allowing molten glass to be produced for the first time. At the same time, the expansion of the empire also brought an influx of people and an expansion of cultural influences that resulted in the adoption of eastern decorative styles. The changes that took place in the Roman glass industry during this period can therefore be seen as a result of three primary influences: historical events, technical innovation and contemporary fashions. They are also linked to the fashions and technologies developed in the ceramic trade, from which a number of forms and techniques were drawn.
Glass making reached its peak at the beginning of the 2nd century AD, with glass objects in domestic contexts of every kind. The primary production techniques of blowing, and to a lesser extent casting, remained in use for the rest of the Roman period, with changes in vessel types but little change in technology. From the 2nd century onwards styles became increasingly regionalised, and evidence indicates that bottles and closed vessels such as unguentaria moved as a by-product of the trade in their contents, and many appear to have matched the Roman scale of liquid measurement. The use of coloured glass as a decorative addition to pale and colourless glasses also increased, and metal vessels continued to influence the shape of glass vessels. After the conversion of Constantine, glass works began to move more quickly from depicting Pagan religious imagery towards Christian religious imagery. The movement of the capital to Constantinople rejuvenated the Eastern glass industry, and the presence of the Roman military in the western provinces did much to prevent any downturn there. By the mid-4th century mould-blowing was in use only sporadically.
History of glass
Naturally occurring glass, especially the volcanic glass obsidian, has been used by many Stone Age societies across the globe for the production of sharp cutting tools and, due to its limited source areas, was extensively traded. But in general, archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or ancient Egypt. Because of Egypt's favorable environment for preservation, the majority of well-studied early glass is found there, although some of this is likely to have been imported. The earliest known glass objects, of the mid-third millennium BC, were beads, perhaps initially created as accidental by-products of metal-working (slags) or during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing.
Hellenistic art
It was in the Hellenistic period that the Greeks, who until then only knew molded glass, discovered the technique of glass blowing, thus permitting new forms. Beginning in Syria, the art of glass developed especially in Italy. Molded glass continued, notably in the creation of intaglio jewelry.
Pressed glass
Pressed glass (or pattern glass) is a form of glass made using a plunger to press molten glass into a mold. It was first patented by American inventor John P. Bakewell in 1825 to make knobs for furniture.
Studio glass
In China, glass art first appeared in the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BC) and was called "liuli". One of the oldest artifacts of Chinese liuli, a pair of burial ear cups, was retrieved from the archaeological site of Western Han Dynasty Prince Liu Sheng of Zhongshan in Hebei Province. Across thousands of years, the art gradually diminished until it was resurrected by artists Loretta H. Yang and Chang Yi in 1987 through the first contemporary Chinese liuli art studio Liuligongfang. In 1997, Yang and Chang released their technique and procedure to the public with the purpose of creating a diplomatic platform for education and advancement. The Liuligongfang technique has since become a key cornerstone upon which contemporary Chinese liuli is built with Yang and Chang widely recognized as the pioneers and founders of contemporary Chinese liuli.
History of glass
Chinese learned to manufacture glass comparably later than the Mesopotamians, Egyptians and Indians. Imported glass objects first reached China during the late Spring and Autumn period – early Warring States period (early 5th century BC), in the form of polychrome ‘eye beads’. These imports created the impetus for the production of indigenous glass beads.
Glass fiber
Glass wool, which is one product called "fiberglass" today, was invented in 1932–1933 by Russell Games Slayter of Owens-Corning, as a material to be used as thermal building insulation. It is marketed under the trade name Fiberglas, which has become a genericized trademark. Glass fiber when used as a thermal insulating material, is specially manufactured with a bonding agent to trap many small air cells, resulting in the characteristically air-filled low-density "glass wool" family of products.
Venetian glass
Glass began being produced in Venice around 450, as glassmakers from Aquileia fled to the islands to escape barbarian invaders. The earliest archaeological evidence of a glass factory in the area is from the Venetian lagoon island of Torcello, which dates from the 7th to 8th century. The original Venetian glassmakers were joined by glassmakers from Byzantium (a.k.a. Constantinople) and the Middle East—which enriched their glassmaking knowledge. Glass was made in the Middle East long before it was made in Europe. Early products were beads, glass for mosaics, jewelry, small mirrors, and window glass.
Glasses
Giordano's colleague Friar Alessandro della Spina of Pisa (d. 1313) was soon making eyeglasses. The "Ancient Chronicle of the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine in Pisa" records: "Eyeglasses, having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [Spina] made them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart." By 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses.
The earliest pictorial evidence for the use of eyeglasses is Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait of the cardinal Hugh de Provence reading in a scriptorium. Another early example would be a depiction of eyeglasses found north of the Alps in an altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen, Germany, in 1403. These early glasses had convex lenses that could correct both hyperopia (farsightedness), and the presbyopia that commonly develops as a symptom of aging. It was not until 1604 that Johannes Kepler published the first correct explanation as to why convex and concave lenses could correct presbyopia and myopia.
Early glassmaking in the United States
The glassmaking business in the United States started when eight Germans (known as "Dutchmen") and Poles arrived as part of the Second supply on board the "Mary and Margaret". They used local material: sand in the James River, potash was in the forest and a bed of endless oyster shells which could be burned and ground to make lime. They set up making the first batches of goods exported to England from the New World. The first shipment sent to England was called the trial glass. Most of it was window glass, bottles, vials and plain drinking glasses. The glass factory at Jamestown was believed to be the first manufactory in the United States.
Container
Containers thereafter continued to develop along with related advances in human technology, and with the development of new materials and new means of manufacture. Early glass bottles were produced by the Phoenicians; specimens of Phoenician translucent and transparent glass bottles have been found in Cyprus and Rhodes generally varying in length from three to six inches. These Phoenician examples from the first millennium BC were thought to have been used to contain perfume. The Romans learned glass-making from the Phoenicians and produced many extant examples of fine glass bottles, mostly relatively small. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, sizes for retail containers such as glass bottles had become standardized for their markets.
Architectural glass
Developed by James Hartledsay in 1848. The glass is taken from the furnace in large iron ladles, which are carried upon slings running on overhead rails; from the ladle the glass is thrown upon the cast-iron bed of a rolling-table; and is rolled into sheet by an iron roller, the process being similar to that employed in making plate-glass, but on a smaller scale. The sheet thus rolled is roughly trimmed while hot and soft, so as to remove those portions of glass which have been spoiled by immediate contact with the ladle, and the sheet, still soft, is pushed into the open mouth of an annealing tunnel or temperature-controlled oven called a lehr, down which it is carried by a system of rollers.
Hellenistic glass
Core-formed glass vessels produced in the Mediterranean from 1525 to 50 BC were the most numerous and widespread. Core-formed vessels were generally small in size, opaque and designed to store perfumes, scented oils and cosmetics. The most common shapes were alabastra, amphoriskoi, aryballoi and lentoid aryballoi, oinochoai (jugs), and for the first time in the Hellenistic period hudriskai (three-handled flasks) and unguentaria (unguent bottles).
During the second half of the 3rd century BC, mosaic glass, also known as 'millefiori', literally, a thousand flowers, emerged. The group consists mostly of fused and slumped broad plates and shallow dishes with upright or out-splayed rims or hemispherical bowls. Sub-groups of mosaic glass production are 'network' or 'lacework' hemispherical bowls and vessels with meandering or spiral decorative patterns that imitate onyx. Often these bowls had a rim formed of a single ‘network’ cane of spirally twisted threads which gives a 'striped' effect. It is best represented in burial contexts from several large tombs in Canosa di Puglia (ancient Canusium) in Italy. They are open vessels since they are made with a mould but still opaque, like the widely produced core-formed vessels.
History of glass
Roman glass production developed from Hellenistic technical traditions, initially concentrating on the production of intensely colored cast glass vessels. Glass objects have been recovered across the Roman Empire in domestic, funerary and industrial contexts. Glass was used primarily for the production of vessels, although mosaic tiles and window glass were also produced.
Lead glass
Glasses with lead oxide content first appeared in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of the glass industry. The earliest known example is a blue glass fragment from Nippur dated to 1400 BC containing 3.66% PbO. Glass is mentioned in clay tablets from the reign of Assurbanipal (668–631 BC), and a recipe for lead glaze appears in a Babylonian tablet of 1700 BC. A red sealing-wax cake found in the Burnt Palace at Nimrud, from the early 6th century BC, contains 10% PbO. These low values suggest that lead oxide may not have been consciously added, and was certainly not used as the primary fluxing agent in ancient glasses.
Cranberry glass
The origins of cranberry glass making are unknown, but many historians believe a form of this glass was first made in the late Roman Empire. This is evidenced by the British Museum's collection Lycurgus Cup, a 4th-century Roman glass cage cup made of a dichroic glass, which shows a different colour depending on whether light is passing through it or reflecting from it; red (gold salts) when lit from behind and green (silver salts) when lit from in front.
Early Christian art and architecture
Gold sandwich glass or gold glass was a technique for fixing a layer of gold leaf with a design between two fused layers of glass, developed in Hellenistic glass and revived in the 3rd century. There are a very fewer larger designs, but the great majority of the around 500 survivals are roundels that are the cut-off bottoms of wine cups or glasses used to mark and decorate graves in the Catacombs of Rome by pressing them into the mortar. The great majority are 4th century, extending into the 5th century. Most are Christian, but many pagan and a few Jewish, and had probably originally been given as gifts on marriage, or festive occasions such as New Year. Their iconography has been much studied, although artistically they are relatively unsophisticated. Their subjects are similar to the catacomb paintings, but with a difference balance including more portraiture of the deceased (usually, it is presumed). The progression to an increased number of images of saints can be seen in them. The same technique began to be used for gold tesserae for mosaics in the mid-1st century in Rome, and by the 5th century these had become the standard background for religious mosaics.
Glassblowing
The invention of glassblowing coincided with the establishment of the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC, which enhanced the spread and dominance of this new technology. Glassblowing was greatly supported by the Roman government (although Roman citizens could not be "in trade", in particular under the reign of Augustus), and glass was being blown in many areas of the Roman world. On the eastern borders of the Empire, the first large glass workshops were set up by the Phoenicians in the birthplace of glassblowing in contemporary Lebanon and Israel as well as in the neighbouring province of Cyprus.
History of glass
The first Persian glass was discovered in the explorations of Dinkhahtepe in Azarbaijan by Burny. It was glass bead from the late Bronze Age (1600 B.C.). Then in the middle Elam era of Chogha, Zanbil Temple existed. Many glass tubes were discovered by French teams. Today it is certain that the mosaic glass cups from the Iron Age of North Iran, such as Hassnlou Tepe, Marlik Tepe. It resembles a number of Mesopotamian examples, in Susa of late Elam, a few glass vessels were discovered, of core forming technique. Also in Azarbaijan and Kordestan, the Gilan provinces, a few kohl tubes were discovered from the late Iron Age that continued into the Achamenid period. In this time achamind bowls and colorless glass growing on empair but in selukid and parthian times helleni and roman techniques were Prevalented and Sassanian era seem local motives on glass vessels.
Technological and industrial history of Canada
Glass manufacturing was introduced at this time. Glass was manufactured at Mallorytown, Upper Canada beginning in 1825. Window glass was produced at the Canada Glass Works in St. Jean, Canada East (Quebec) from 1845 to 1851 and the Ottawa Glass Works at Como in Ottawa, Canada West (Ontario) from 1847 to 1857. Glass was blown to form tubes which were cut lengthwise, unrolled and flattened. Glass bottles were produced starting in 1851 by the Ottawa factory and Foster Brothers Glass Works, in St. Jean starting in 1855. Other manufacturers included: the Canada Glass Works, Hudson, Quebec, 1864–1872 and the Hamilton Glass Company, Hamilton, Ont, 1865–96, which produced "green" glass and the St. Lawrence Glass Company, Montreal, 1867–73 and Burlington Glass Company of Hamilton, Ont, 1874–98 which produced "flint" or clear glass. Rubber footwear was produced by the Canadian Rubber Company in Montreal starting in 1854.
Glass cutter
In the Middle Ages, glass was cut with a heated and sharply pointed iron rod. The red hot point was drawn along the moistened surface of the glass causing it to snap apart. Fractures created in this way were not very accurate and the rough pieces had to be chipped or "grozed" down to more exact shapes with a hooked tool called a grozing iron. Between the 14th and 16th centuries, starting in Italy, a diamond-tipped cutter became prevalent which allowed for more precise cutting. Then in 1869 the wheel cutter was developed by Samuel Monce of Bristol, Connecticut, which remains the current standard tool for most glass cutting.
Victoria and Albert Museum
The glass collection covers 4000 years of glass making, and has over 6000 items from Africa, Britain, Europe, America and Asia. The earliest glassware on display comes from Ancient Egypt and continues through the Ancient Roman, Medieval, Renaissance covering areas such as Venetian glass and Bohemian glass and more recent periods, including Art Nouveau glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé, the Art Deco style is represented by several examples by René Lalique. There are many examples of crystal chandeliers both English, displayed in the British galleries and foreign for example Venetian (attributed to Giuseppe Briati) dated c1750 are in the collection. The stained glass collection is possibly the finest in the world, covering the medieval to modern periods, and covering Europe as well as Britain. Several examples of English 16th-century heraldic glass is displayed in the British Galleries. Many well-known designers of stained glass are represented in the collection including, from the 19th century: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. There is also an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the collection. 20th-century designers include Harry Clarke, John Piper, Patrick Reyntiens, Veronica Whall and Brian Clarke.
History of glass
According to Pliny the Elder, Phoenician traders were the first to stumble upon glass manufacturing techniques at the site of the Belus River. Georgius Agricola, in "De re metallica", reported a traditional serendipitous "discovery" tale of familiar type:
Glass
Glass was used extensively during the Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon glass has been found across England during archaeological excavations of both settlement and cemetery sites. Glass in the Anglo-Saxon period was used in the manufacture of a range of objects including vessels, windows, beads, and was also used in jewelry. From the 10th-century onwards, glass was employed in stained glass windows of churches and cathedrals, with famous examples at Chartres Cathedral and the Basilica of Saint Denis. By the 14th-century, architects were designing buildings with walls of stained glass such as Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, (1203–1248) and the East end of Gloucester Cathedral. Stained glass had a major revival with Gothic Revival architecture in the 19th century. With the Renaissance, and a change in architectural style, the use of large stained glass windows became less prevalent. The use of domestic stained glass increased until most substantial houses had glass windows. These were initially small panes leaded together, but with the changes in technology, glass could be manufactured relatively cheaply in increasingly larger sheets. This led to larger window panes, and, in the 20th-century, to much larger windows in ordinary domestic and commercial buildings.
Venetian glass
Aventurine glass, also known as goldstone glass, is translucent brownish with metallic (copper) specs. It was developed by Venetian glassmakers in the early 15th century. It is first cited in historical documents in 1626. The name aventurine is used because it was discovered accidentally.
History of glass
However, during the 1st century AD, the industry underwent rapid technical growth that saw the introduction of glass blowing and the dominance of colorless or ‘aqua’ glasses. Production of raw glass was undertaken in geographically separate locations to the working of glass into finished vessels, and by the end of the 1st century AD large scale manufacturing, primarily in Alexandria, resulted in the establishment of glass as a commonly available material in the Roman world.
History of glass
An early advance in automating glass manufacturing was patented in 1848 by the engineer Henry Bessemer. His system produced a continuous ribbon of flat glass by forming the ribbon between rollers. This was an expensive process, as the surfaces of the glass needed polishing and was later abandoned by its sponsor, Robert Lucas Chance of Chance Brothers, as unviable. Bessemer also introduced an early form of "Float Glass" in 1843, which involved pouring glass onto liquid tin.
Satin glass
Satin glass was first made as decorative pressed glass in England and the United States during the 1880s. Many companies have produced this type of satin glass.
Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon describes that the Jaredite people were familiar with the concept of "windows" near the time of the biblical Tower of Babel, and that they specifically avoided crafting windows for lighting in their covered seagoing vessels, because of fears that "they would be dashed in pieces" during the ocean voyage. Transparent window panes are a more recent invention, dating to the 11th century AD in Germany. The earliest known production of glass dates to 3500 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia, though the specimens are non-transparent beads.
Float glass
The first advances in automating glass manufacturing were patented in 1848 by Henry Bessemer, an English engineer. His system produced a continuous ribbon of flat glass by forming the ribbon between rollers. This was an expensive process, as the surfaces of the glass needed polishing. If the glass could be set on a perfectly smooth, flat body, like the surface of an open pan of calm liquid, this would reduce costs considerably. Attempts were made to form flat glass on a bath of molten tin—one of the few liquids denser than glass that would be calm at the high temperatures needed to make glass—most notably in the US. Several patents were granted, but this process was unworkable at the time.
Heated glass
The first heated glass was created in 1931 by Protes Glass Company, offered for cars. Their product was not a success.
Glass art
Starting in the Middle Ages, glass became more widely produced, and used for windows in buildings. Stained glass became common for windows in cathedrals and grand civic buildings.
Glass float
Norway, around 1840, was the first country to produce and use glass fishing floats. Many of them can still be found in local boathouses. Christopher Faye, a Norwegian merchant from Bergen, is credited with their invention. The glass float was developed through cooperation with one of the owners of the Hadeland Glassverk in Norway, Chr. Berg.
Fused glass
While the precise origins of glass fusing techniques are not known with certainty, there is archeological evidence that the Egyptians were familiar with techniques ca. 2000 BCE. Although this date is generally accepted by researchers, some historians argue that the earliest fusing techniques were first developed by the Romans, who were much more prolific glassworkers. Fusing was the primary method of making small glass objects for approximately 2,000 years, until the development of the glass blowpipe. Glassblowing largely supplanted fusing due to its greater efficiency and utility.
Gold glass
From at least the 17th century the Roman glasses attracted antiquarian interest and they began to be removed from the catacombs, in a largely disorganized and unrecorded fashion; now only a "handful" remain in their original position in the catacomb walls. The first significant publication on them was by Filippo Buonarroti in 1716, "Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di vetro ornate di figure trovati nei cimiteri di Roma" ("Observations on some fragments of antique glass vases decorated with figures, found in the cemeteries of Rome"), in which he made the extraordinary, almost proto-Romantic assertion that the aesthetic crudity of early Christian art, often remarked by connoisseurs of Roman arts, had served to intensify the piety of the worshipper, an early expression of feeling for primitive art. After other studies, the Italian Jesuit Raffaele Garrucci published the first illustrated survey in 1858, with an expanded second edition in 1864. In the 19th century a number of imitations, copies and downright forgeries of Roman pieces were made, mostly in Murano off Venice, by firms such as Salviati. The first major public exhibition of these seems to have been at the Exposition Universelle of 1878 in Paris, by Italian firms.
History of glass
Bohemian glass, or Bohemia crystal, is a decorative glass produced in regions of Bohemia and Silesia, now in the current state of the Czech Republic, since the 13th century. Oldest archaeology excavations of glass-making sites date to around 1250 and are located in the Lusatian Mountains of Northern Bohemia. Most notable sites of glass-making throughout the ages are Skalice (), Kamenický Šenov () and Nový Bor (). Both Nový Bor and Kamenický Šenov have their own Glass Museums with many items dating since around 1600. It was especially outstanding in its manufacture of glass in high Baroque style from 1685 to 1750. In the 17th century, Caspar Lehmann, gem cutter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, adapted to glass the technique of gem engraving with copper and bronze wheels.
Cobalt
Cobalt has been used to color glass since the Bronze Age. The excavation of the Uluburun shipwreck yielded an ingot of blue glass, cast during the 14th century BC. Blue glass from Egypt was either colored with copper, iron, or cobalt. The oldest cobalt-colored glass is from the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). The source for the cobalt the Egyptians used is not known.
Skylight
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was France that probably had the leading technology in architectural glass. One of the earliest forms of the glass skylight can be seen at the Palace of Versailles in the Galerie des Batailles, which was added onto the existing palace by Louis Philippe in the year 1830. Another form that displays early sky lighting technology is the Halle aux blés (Paris) built in 1763-67. This form of natural overhead lighting allowed for illumination while decoration could cover the entire interior wall, and it is the option least obstructed by other buildings. This means that sky lighting as we know it, in many forms today, was probably pioneered in France during the early 18th century or late 17th century. According to architectural glass, the earliest functional skylights would have been formed by either glass casting, crown glass (window), cylinder blown sheet, and machine drawn cylinder sheet, or fourcault process.
Medieval stained glass
Some of the earliest known examples of colored window glass, datable to c. 800–820, were recovered in excavations at the Abbey of San Vicenzo in Volturno, Italy. Glass of the same colour ranges and similar date is also found in England, at the monastic sites of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, and at other sites in the north of England. These examples are not painted. However, it was not until the advent of the monumental cathedral and church building campaigns in the 11th and 12th centuries that the demand for colored glass began to increase significantly, reaching its highest level in the 14th and 15th centuries. The oldest surviving stained glass windows still "in situ" are thought to be the Prophet Windows in Augsburg Cathedral, of c. 1065.
Hellenistic glass
The origins of the mosaic glassworking technique are traced back in the 15th century BC in the Mesopotamian glassmaking centres, such as Tell-al-Rimah, ΄Aqar Qūf and Marlik. Although the mosaic technique at the time was practiced in a desultory way, it is the predecessor of the elaborated mosaic vessels of high quality of the Alexandrian workshops, after the foundation of the city of Alexandria in Egypt in 332 BC by Alexander the Great, which is said to be the main production centre of these vessels.
Bioabsorbable metallic glass
The first reported metallic glass was an alloy (AuSi) produced at Caltech by W. Klement (Jr.), Willens and Duwez in 1960. This and other early glass-forming alloys had to be cooled extremely rapidly (in the order of one mega-kelvin per second, 10 K/s) to avoid crystallization. An important consequence of this was that metallic glasses could only be produced in a limited number of forms (typically ribbons, foils, or wires) in which one or more dimensions were small so that heat could be extracted quickly enough to achieve the necessary cooling rates. As a result, metallic glass specimens (with a few exceptions) were limited to thicknesses of less than one hundred micrometers.
Cameo glass
Cameo glass is a luxury form of glass art produced by cameo etching and carving through fused layers of differently colored glass to produce designs, usually with white opaque glass figures and motifs on a dark-colored background. The technique is first seen in ancient Roman art of about 30 BC, where it was an alternative to the more luxurious engraved gem vessels in cameo style that used naturally layered semi-precious gemstones such as onyx and agate. Glass allowed consistent and predictable colored layers, even for round objects.
Venetian glass
"Cristallo" is a soda glass, created during the 15th century by Murano's Angelo Barovier. The oldest reference to "cristallo" is dated May 24, 1453. At the time, "cristallo" was considered Europe's clearest glass, and is one of the main reasons Murano became "the most important glass center". It looked like quartz, which was said to have magical qualities and often used in religious objects. "Cristallo" became very popular. This type of glass was fragile and difficult to cut, but it could be enameled and engraved. Manganese was a key ingredient in the secret formula used to make "cristallo". An easy modification to "cristallo" made in Murano was to produce a frosted or crackle version.
History of glass
During the Late Bronze Age in Egypt (e.g., the Ahhotep "Treasure") and Western Asia (e.g., Megiddo), there was a rapid growth in glassmaking technology. Archaeological finds from this period include colored glass ingots, vessels (often colored and shaped in imitation of highly prized hardstone carvings in semi-precious stones) and the ubiquitous beads. The alkali of Syrian and Egyptian glass was soda ash (sodium carbonate), which can be extracted from the ashes of many plants, notably halophile seashore plants like saltwort. The latest vessels were 'core-formed', produced by winding a ductile rope of glass around a shaped core of sand and clay over a metal rod, then fusing it with repeated reheatings.
Hellenistic glass
Hellenistic glass is the typical soda-lime-silica glass, to which lime was not intentionally added, but it was provided through the agent of sand. Although, it cannot be argued with certainty where the Hellenistic primary production of raw glass was geographically located from the archaeological record, we can hypothesize that a large part of glass production took place in the Syro-Palestinian coast or the broader Levant and Egypt . In favor of this argument are comments of classical writers of the period or a little later, like Strabo (63 BC) who mentioned the Belus river on the Syrian coast to have been used for glassmaking or even by writers other such as Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) or Tacitus (c. 56-c. 117 AD). However, archaeological evidence firmly indicate that primary production of glass, as well as glassworking took place on the island of Rhodes in the Aegean, during the Hellenistic period and, particularly, after the foundation of the city of Rhodes in 408 BC, and even earlier through the Classical period.
Bristol blue glass
During the late 18th century Richard Champion, a Bristol merchant and potter, making porcelain, was working with a chemist, William Cookworthy. Cookworthy began a search for good quality cobalt oxide to give the blue glaze decoration on the white porcelain and obtained exclusive import rights to all the cobalt oxide from the Royal Saxon Cobalt Works in Saxony. It is uncertain when Bristol blue glass was first made but the quality and beauty of the glass swiftly gained popularity, with seventeen glass houses being set up in the city.
Sea glass
For instance, in Jamaica there are influxes of Spanish, African, English, American, East Indian, Chinese, and Jews (who incidentally arrived about the same time Christopher Columbus' son arrived to settle the island in 1510 and many later shipped with the Caribbean pirate crews) and other Europeans scattered throughout the historical record. The majority of black glass found on the island of Jamaica is English glass produced from the later 1600s until the 1800s in England. Sea glass arrived in Jamaica with the old world supply chain first established in the 15th century. The Spanish considered Santiago (Jamaica) a backwater to Cuba, and this allowed the English to relieve them of it in 1655 without much resistance. The first man-made glass most likely arrived with Christopher Columbus on his 2nd voyage when he claimed the island for Spain in 1494. He is reported to have landed at Dry Harbor, Discovery Bay on the north coast. Whether any of the glass on board became sea glass is part of the romance and wonder of beachcombing.
Gold glass
Gold glass or gold sandwich glass is a luxury form of glass where a decorative design in gold leaf is fused between two layers of glass. First found in Hellenistic Greece, it is especially characteristic of the Roman glass of the Late Empire in the 3rd and 4th century AD, where the gold decorated roundels of cups and other vessels were often cut out of the piece they had originally decorated and cemented to the walls of the catacombs of Rome as grave markers for the small recesses where bodies were buried. About 500 pieces of gold glass used in this way have been recovered. Complete vessels are far rarer. Many show religious imagery from Christianity, traditional Greco-Roman religion and its various cultic developments, and in a few examples Judaism. Others show portraits of their owners, and the finest are "among the most vivid portraits to survive from Early Christian times. They stare out at us with an extraordinary stern and melancholy intensity". From the 1st century AD the technique was also used for the gold colour in mosaics.
History of glass
Anglo-Saxon glass has been found across England during archaeological excavations of both settlement and cemetery sites. Glass in the Anglo-Saxon period was used in the manufacture of a range of objects including vessels, beads, windows and was even used in jewelry. In the 5th century AD with the Roman departure from Britain, there were also considerable changes in the usage of glass. Excavation of Romano-British sites have revealed plentiful amounts of glass but, in contrast, the amount recovered from 5th century and later Anglo-Saxon sites is minuscule.
Calculation of glass properties
In 1879 the young glass engineer Otto Schott sent Abbe glass samples with a special composition (lithium silicate glass) that he had prepared himself and that he hoped to show special optical properties. Following measurements by Ernst Abbe, Schott's glass samples did not have the desired properties, and they were also not as homogeneous as desired. Nevertheless, Ernst Abbe invited Otto Schott to work on the problem further and to evaluate all possible glass components systematically. Finally, Schott succeeded in producing homogeneous glass samples, and he invented borosilicate glass with the optical properties Abbe needed. These inventions gave rise to the well-known companies Zeiss and Schott Glass (see also Timeline of microscope technology). Systematic glass research was born. In 1908, Eugene Sullivan founded glass research also in the United States (Corning, New York).
Hebron glass
While acknowledging that the production of glass in Palestine dates back to Roman period, Nazmi Ju'beh, director of "RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation", contends that the practices of today's glass industry in Hebron most likely emerged in the 13th century CE. This corresponds to what foreigners observed, like Jacques de Vitry who around 1080 mentioned Acre and Tyre, (but not Hebron), as glass-producing cities, while by 1483, when Felix Fabri visited the city, he described passing "through the long street of the city, in which work-people of divers crafts dwelt, but particularely workers in glass; for at this place glass is made, not clear glass, but black, and of the colours between dark and light."
Stained glass
The creation of stained glass in Southwest Asia began in ancient times. One of the region's earliest surviving formulations for the production of colored glass comes from the Assyrian city of Nineveh, dating to the seventh century BC. The "Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna", attributed to the 8th century alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān, discusses the production of colored glass in ancient Babylon and Egypt. The "Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna" also describes how to create colored glass and artificial gemstones made from high-quality stained glass. The tradition of stained glass manufacture has continued, with mosques, palaces, and public spaces being decorated with stained glass throughout the Islamic world. The stained glass of Islam is generally non-pictorial and of purely geometric design, but may contain both floral motifs and text. 
Stained glass, as an art form, reached its height in the Middle Ages when it became a major pictorial form used to illustrate the narratives of the Bible to a largely illiterate populace.
Medieval technology
The first mention of a "glass" mirror is in 1180 by Alexander Neckham who said "Take away the lead which is behind the glass and there will be no image of the one looking in."
Window
The Romans were the first known to use glass for windows, a technology likely first produced in Roman Egypt, in Alexandria ca. 100 AD. Paper windows were economical and widely used in ancient China, Korea and Japan. In England, glass became common in the windows of ordinary homes only in the early 17th century whereas windows made up of panes of flattened animal horn were used as early as the 14th century. In the 19th century American west, greased paper windows came to be used by itinerant groups. Modern-style floor-to-ceiling windows became possible only after the industrial plate glass making processes were fully perfected.
Zlatno, Poltár District
Production of glass started in the village in 1833. Products had been transported to several world exhibitions. In the middle of 19th century came to Zlatno Leo Valentin Pantoček. He invented the way how to produce the glass money. Later this technique was named as hyaloplastics. In 1856 followed the invention of iris glass. A lot of production had been exported to United Kingdom and United States. 
In Zlatno had been a glasswork museum, which, however, ceased to exist. The glass factory stopped its production in 2003. However, several private companies continue in glass production.
History of glass
The majority of complete vessels and assemblages of beads come from the excavations of early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, but a change in burial rites in the late 7th century affected the recovery of glass, as Christian Anglo-Saxons were buried with fewer grave goods, and glass is rarely found. From the late 7th century onwards, window glass is found more frequently. This is directly related to the introduction of Christianity and the construction of churches and monasteries. There are a few Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical literary sources that mention the production and use of glass, although these relate to window glass used in ecclesiastical buildings. Glass was also used by the Anglo-Saxons in their jewelry, both as enamel or as cut glass insets.
Stained glass
Probably the earliest scheme of stained glass windows that was created during the Renaissance was that for Florence Cathedral, devised by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The scheme includes three ocular windows for the dome and three for the facade which were designed from 1405 to 1445 by several of the most renowned artists of this period: Ghiberti, Donatello, Uccello and Andrea del Castagno. Each major ocular window contains a single picture drawn from the Life of Christ or the Life of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by a wide floral border, with two smaller facade windows by Ghiberti showing the martyred deacons, St Stephen and St Lawrence. One of the cupola windows has since been lost, and that by Donatello has lost nearly all of its painted details.
Glasses
Early frames for glasses consisted of two magnifying glasses riveted together by the handles so that they could grip the nose. These are referred to as "rivet spectacles". The earliest surviving examples were found under the floorboards at Kloster Wienhausen, a convent near Celle in Germany; they have been dated to "circa" 1400.
Bohemian glass
Bohemian glass-workers discovered potash combined with chalk created a clear colourless glass that was more stable than glass from Italy. In the 16th century the term Bohemian crystal was used for the first time to distinguish its qualities from glass made elsewhere. This glass contained no lead as is commonly suspected. This Czech glass could be cut with a wheel. In addition, resources such as wood for firing the kilns and for burning down to ashes were used to create potash. There were also copious amounts of limestone and silica. In the 17th century, Caspar Lehmann, gem cutter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, adapted to glass the technique of gem engraving with copper and bronze wheels. During the era, the Czech lands became the dominant producer of decorative glassware and the local manufacture of glass earned international reputation in high Baroque style from 1685 to 1750.
Byzantine glass
A major innovation of the Byzantine period was the invention of the glass lamp. Glass lamps are first attested in the first half of the fourth century CE in Palestine, where they began to replace the clay lamps in use at the time as they were much more efficient. By the middle of the fifth century their use was rapidly spreading westward. Initially these lamps were shaped just like drinking vessels, though the number of shapes expanded to seventeen over the course of the sixth and seventh centuries.
Anglo-Saxon glass
The main type of glass found in the Anglo-Saxon period is a soda-lime-silica glass, continuing the Roman tradition of producing glass. There is very little evidence for glass making from the raw materials in Roman Britain and even less evidence in Anglo-Saxon Britain. It would have been nearly impossible to transport the natron from the Middle East to Britain. It is therefore far more likely, that as in the Roman period, glass was being produced near the raw materials and then lumps of raw glass transported. Another source of glass was cullet, recycled broken or crushed glass. Recycling was carried out throughout the Roman period, and large deposits of broken glass at Winchester and Hamwic suggest glass was also being recycled in the Anglo-Saxon period. It is possible that by recycling glass in this way it was possible to keep up to the demand for glass products without new raw glass having to be introduced into the system. Additional cullet may also have been collected from the ruins of abandoned Romano-British sites. In the late 7-8th century with the construction of many ecclesiastical establishments and large windows, the demand for glass grew. At this time political problems in the Delta-Wadi Natrun region caused a shortage of natron in the Middle East where the raw glass was produced. This possibly led to glass makers experimenting with new fluxes, which finally led to the introduction of wood ash glasses using potash as the main alkali flux, which was more readily available.
Table above: Compositions of glass from the 1st Millennium AD. Adapted from data published in Sanderson, Hunter and Warren’s analysis of 1st Millennium AD glass (top) and data published by Freestone’s study of the provenance of ancient glass through compositional analysis (bottom). HIMT stands for high iron, manganese and titanium glass, nm for not measured and where there were only traces or the value was below the analytical equipment's detection limits <0.1 is used.
New Bedford Museum of Glass
The Museum's collection numbers more than 7,000 items. The earliest example of glass on display is a core-formed vessel of eastern Mediterranean origin dating from 600 BCE. European glass includes a diamond-engraved wine glass of about 1690, an English seal bottle dated 1785, a glass portrait medallion of about 1813 representing Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, by English artist John Henning, and numerous other examples. Early American glass is particularly well represented in the museum galleries. The collection includes outstanding examples by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, the New England Glass Company, Thomas Cains' Phoenix Glass Works of South Boston, Bakewell, Page and Bakewell of Pittsburgh and many other celebrated makers. Examples of New Bedford glass include Mount Washington's Amberina, Burmese, Crown Milano, Lava Glass, Peach Blow, and Royal Flemish art glass and Pairpoint engraved pieces. Contemporary artists include Dale Chihuly, Edris Eckhardt, and Harvey Littleton. The Museum's collection of American political glass, featured in a special installation at the New Bedford City Hall, is the largest of its kind on public display, numbering more than 500 items. Popular permanent exhibits in the museum galleries include "Contemporary Paperweights: The Schimmelpfeng Collection" and "Atomic Green Vaseline: Uranium Glass in Everyday Life." Another important resource at the Museum is the Virginia Shaw Rockwell Research Library, which contains more than 6,000 publications on the subject of glass.
Forest glass
Forest glass (Waldglas in German) is late medieval glass produced in northwestern and central Europe from approximately 1000–1700 AD using wood ash and sand as the main raw materials and made in factories known as glasshouses in forest areas. It is characterized by a variety of greenish-yellow colors, the earlier products often being of crude design and poor quality, and was used mainly for everyday vessels and increasingly for ecclesiastical stained glass windows. Its composition and manufacture contrast sharply with Roman and pre-Roman glassmaking centered on the Mediterranean and contemporaneous Islamic glass making to the east.
Cocktail glass
Despite a popular story that says the martini glass was invented during Prohibition so that in the case of a raid on a speakeasy, the large rim allowed the drink to be easily disposed of, the martini glass was formally introduced in the 1925 Paris Exhibition as a modernist take on the Champagne coupe, and wasn't originally used as it is today: in films of the 1920s it is shown to be used to hold champagne, like the coupe. However, despite the design taking influence from the geometric aesthetics of the eras architecture, interiors and furnishings, it was designed less for aesthetics and more for functionality - with the longer stem reducing the warming effect of body heat upon the contents of the glass, and the widened brim increasing surface area, supposedly allowing the gin, the main ingredient in martinis, to release its bouquet. Steeply sloping sides prevent ingredients separating, and also serve to support a toothpick or olives on a cocktail skewer.
Medieval stained glass
Window glass was in use from at least the 1st century AD and colored and painted window glass for use in religious buildings was also manufactured at an early date. The earliest extant example of ecclesiastical stained glass is possibly that from San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. A clear glass roundel with a depiction of Christ in Majesty, thought to be the 6th century, was discovered here.
Ancient glass trade
Glass shows up in Northern India at the end of the 2nd millennium BC becoming more common throughout South East Asia during the following millennium. Glass beads in particular become extremely popular and together with bangles form the largest group of glass finds. From its Indian origins, glass beads spread to an area from Africa to Japan, sailing with the monsoon winds and leading to their christening as 'Trade wind beads'. The most common compositional type, representing 40% of the glass finds for the region, is known as mineral soda-alumina glass and is found from the 4th century BC to the 16th century AD. As the name indicates this it is typically characterized by a high alumina content and was made by the probably melting of "reh" with local, alumina rich, sands. Through LA-ICP-MS analysis, however, Carter found that Cambodia had a large amount of glass beads made of potash glass and predominantly high alumina soda glass. Potash glass is a glass that uses potash or K2O as a flux in order to decrease the melting point of the glass and is the most common type of glass found in SE Asia.
Medieval stained glass
Glass comprising multiple layers of clear and (usually) red glass was known to exist in the 12th and 13th centuries. The manufacturing process is not known. Flashing was developed in the 15th century, and refers to the superimposition of a thin layer of coloured glass onto another coloured or uncoloured glass sheet. The procedure may have involved dipping a small sphere of molten glass into a molten uncoloured glass and blowing this into a cylinder form (the cylinder blown sheet process) which was then cut into sections and flattened in an annealing oven. Red, or ruby, copper-based glass, is usually flashed as the colour is too dense to be used alone. Other glass colours may also be flashed. These techniques could be remarkably sophisticated as demonstrated by 15thc. glass from the Carthusian Monastery of Pavia, where layered glasses of blue and violet; green and uncoloured; and red and uncoloured have been identified.
Hebron glass
The glass industry in Hebron was established during Roman rule in Palestine (63 BCE-330 CE). As the ancient Phoenician glass industry shrank from the exposed cities along the eastern Mediterranean coastline, the industry migrated inland, to Hebron in particular. Glass artifacts from Hebron dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries have been found, and are on exhibit as part of the Drake Collection. Stained glass windows made of Hebron glass dating to the 12th century are found in the structure built over the Cave of Machpelah, which served as a church during the Crusader era in Palestine. Another example of stained glass windows produced in Hebron are those adorning the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem.
History of glass
This account is more a reflection of Roman experience of glass production, however, as white silica sand from this area was used in the production of glass within the Roman Empire due to its high purity levels. During the 1st century BC glass blowing was discovered on the Syro-Judean coast, revolutionizing the industry. Glass vessels were now inexpensive compared to pottery vessels. A growth of the use of glass products occurred throughout the Roman world. Glass became the Roman plastic, and glass containers produced in Alexandria spread throughout the Roman Empire. With the discovery of clear glass (through the introduction of manganese dioxide), by glass blowers in Alexandria circa 100 AD, the Romans began to use glass for architectural purposes. Cast glass windows, albeit with poor optical qualities, began to appear in the most important buildings in Rome and the most luxurious villas of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Over the next 1,000 years, glass making and working continued and spread through southern Europe and beyond.
Amorphous metal
The first reported metallic glass was an alloy (AuSi) produced at Caltech by W. Klement (Jr.), Willens and Duwez in 1960. This and other early glass-forming alloys had to be cooled extremely rapidly (on the order of one megakelvin per second, 10 K/s) to avoid crystallization. An important consequence of this was that metallic glasses could only be produced in a limited number of forms (typically ribbons, foils, or wires) in which one dimension was small so that heat could be extracted quickly enough to achieve the necessary cooling rate. As a result, metallic glass specimens (with a few exceptions) were limited to thicknesses of less than one hundred micrometers.
History of glass
The use of glass as a building material was heralded by The Crystal Palace of 1851, built by Joseph Paxton to house the Great Exhibition. Paxton's revolutionary new building inspired the public use of glass as a material for domestic and horticultural architecture. In 1832, the British Crown Glass Company (later Chance Brothers) became the first company to adopt the cylinder method to produce sheet glass with the expertise of Georges Bontemps, a famous French glassmaker. This glass was produced by blowing long cylinders of glass, which were then cut along the length and then flattened onto a cast-iron table, before being annealed. Plate glass involves the glass being ladled onto a cast-iron bed, where it is rolled into a sheet with an iron roller. The sheet, still soft, is pushed into the open mouth of an annealing tunnel or temperature-controlled oven called a lehr, down which it was carried by a system of rollers. James Hartley introduced the Rolled Plate method in 1847. This allowed a ribbed finish and was often used for extensive glass roofs such as within railway stations.
Yard of ale
The glass most likely originated in 17th-century England, where the glass was known also as a "long glass", a "Cambridge yard (glass)" and an "ell glass". Such a glass was a testament to the glassblower's skill as much as the drinker's. John Evelyn records in his "Diary" the formal yet festive drinking of a yard of ale toast to James II at Bromley in Kent (now southeast London), 1685.
History of glass
By the 1st century AD, glass was being used for ornaments and casing in South Asia. Contact with the Greco-Roman world added newer techniques, and Indians artisans mastered several techniques of glass molding, decorating and coloring by the succeeding centuries. The Satavahana period of India also produced short cylinders of composite glass, including those displaying a lemon yellow matrix covered with green glass.
Whimsey glass
Whimsey glass is work that is created for no useful purpose, so named as it is made on a whimsey of the glassmaker. Glassmakers would make whimsies on their breaks or at the end of the day with any extra molten glass left in the pot. They would often bring the objects home to their families. Also known as friggers, it became one of the most sought-after styles of glass during the 19th-century, especially representations of boots and shoes, though this style of glass is first recorded in 15th-century Germany. During the 19th century its popularity was as a souvenir but also due to its display in trade exhibitions.
Laminated glass
Laminated glass was invented in 1903 by the French chemist Édouard Bénédictus (1878-1930), inspired by a laboratory accident. A glass flask had become coated with the plastic cellulose nitrate and when dropped shattered but did not break into pieces. However, it was not until 1909 that Benedictus filed a patent, after hearing about a car accident where two women were severely injured by glass debris
. In 1911, he formed the "Société du Verre Triplex", which fabricated a glass-plastic composite to reduce injuries in car accidents.. Production of Triplex glass was slow and painstaking, making it expensive. It was not immediately widely adopted by automobile manufacturers, but laminated glass was widely used in the eyepieces of gas masks during World War I. In 1912, the process was licensed to "The English Triplex Safety Glass Company". Subsequently, in the United States, both Libbey Owens-Ford and Du Pont de Nemours with Pittsburg Plate Glass produced Triplex.
Pressed glass
The technique was developed in the United States from the 1820s and in Europe, particularly France, Bohemia, and Sweden from the 1830s. By the mid-19th century, most inexpensive mass-produced glassware was pressed (1850–1910). One type of pressed glass is carnival glass. Painted pressed glass produced in the early 20th century is often called goofus glass. The method is also used to make beads.
Tempered glass
Francois Barthelemy Alfred Royer de la Bastie (1830–1901) of Paris, France is credited with first developing a method of tempering glass by quenching almost molten glass in a heated bath of oil or grease in 1874, the method patented in England on August 12, 1874, patent number 2783. Tempered glass is sometimes known as "Bastie glass" after de la Bastie. In 1877 the German Friedrich Siemens developed a different process, sometimes called compressed glass or Siemens glass, producing a tempered glass stronger than the Bastie process by pressing the glass in cool molds. The first patent on a whole process to make tempered glass was held by chemist Rudolph A. Seiden who was born in 1900 in Austria and emigrated to the United States in 1935.
History of glass
Evidence of the use of the blown plate glass method dates back to 1620 in London and was used for mirrors and coach plates. Louis Lucas de Nehou and A. Thevart perfected the process of casting Polished plate glass in 1688 in France. Prior to this invention, mirror plates, made from blown "sheet" glass, had been limited in size. De Nehou's process of rolling molten glass poured on an iron table rendered the manufacture of very large plates possible. This method of production was adopted by the English in 1773 at Ravenhead. The polishing process was industrialized around 1800 with the adoption of a steam engine to carry out the grinding and polishing of the cast glass.
Roman Cyprus
Before the invention of glass blowing in the mid first-century BC, glass had been a fairly rare and expensive luxury commodity, the use of which was mostly confined to containers for perfume and cosmetics. However, with the invention of glass blowing, glass became much more widely available and affordable and began to be produced on a much larger scale with factories dedicated to the production of glass being established throughout the Roman world, including Cyprus. Though it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between locally produced Cypriot glass and imported glass in Cyprus, it can be conclusively stated that glass was in fact being manufactured locally within the island. Evidence for this can be found in sites such as Salamis, Tamassos, Limassol and Amathus. A glass workshop was discovered at Tamassos by Ohnefalsch Richter though he was unfortunately unable to fully publish his findings. He does however mention the discovery of a glass furnace which points to glass being manufactured at the site. Although his discoveries were never dated precisely, many consider it likely that they dated to the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD. Blocks of glass were discovered at Salamis which seems to indicate that this was another glass production center though a furnace associated with this site has not yet been discovered. Cypriot glass is thought to have flourished in the Antonine and Severan periods, or from 140 AD to 240 AD and indeed most of the glass discovered is dated to this time. The fact that the economy in Cyprus was flourishing during this period further supports this conclusion.
Engraving
However the use of glass engraving, usually using a wheel, to cut decorative scenes or figures into glass vessels, in imitation of hardstone carvings, appears as early as the first century AD, continuing into the fourth century CE at urban centers such as Cologne and Rome, and appears to have ceased sometime in the fifth century. Decoration was first based on Greek mythology, before hunting and circus scenes became popular, as well as imagery drawn from the Old and New Testament. It appears to have been used to mimic the appearance of precious metal wares during the same period, including the application of gold leaf, and could be cut free-hand or with lathes. As many as twenty separate stylistic workshops have been identified, and it seems likely that the engraver and vessel producer were separate craftsmen.
Glass bottle
Glass bottles and glass jars are in many households around the world. The first glass bottles were produced in south east Asia around 100 B.C., and in the Roman Empire around 1 AD. America's glass bottle and glass jar industry was born in the early 1600s, when settlers in Jamestown built the first glass melting furnace. The invention of the automatic glass bottle blowing machine in 1880 industrialized the process of making bottles.
Roman glass
Despite the growth of glass working in the Hellenistic World and the growing place of glass in material culture, at the beginning of the 1st century AD there was still no Latin word for it in the Roman World. However, glass was being produced in Roman contexts using primarily Hellenistic techniques and styles (see glass, history) by the late Republican period. The majority of manufacturing techniques were time-consuming, and the initial product was a thick-walled vessel which required considerable finishing. This, combined with the cost of importing natron for the production of raw glass, contributed to the limited use of glass and its position as an expensive and high-status material.
History of materials science
In the 10th century BCE glass production began in ancient Near East. In the 3rd century BCE people in ancient India developed wootz steel, the first crucible steel. In the 1st century BCE glassblowing techniques flourished in Phoenicia. In the 2nd century CE steel-making became widespread in Han Dynasty China. The 4th century CE saw the production of the Iron pillar of Delhi, the oldest surviving example of corrosion-resistant steel.
Hourglass
The origin of the hourglass is unclear. Its predecessor the clepsydra, or water clock, is known to have existed in Babylon and Egypt as early as the 16th century BCE. According to the "Journal of the British Archaeological Association" the so-called clepsammia were in use before the time of St. Jerome (335 CE), and the first potential representation of an hourglass is in a sarcophagus dated c. 350 CE, representing the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, discovered in Rome in the 18th century, and studied by Winckelmann in the 19th century, who remarked on the hourglass held by Morpheus in his hands However, it is disputed whether the object in question is a clepsammia or a similarly-shaped clepsydra; no other hourglass clearly appears in the historical record for another thousand years.
Peking glass
Peking glass (also known as Qianlong Glass or Tao Liao Ping) is a form of Chinese glassware that originated in 18th century Peking, China. Originally used in the fabrication of glass snuff bottles, Peking glass has since been appropriated for a number of uses and continues to be produced in China.
Milk glass
First made in Venice in the 16th century, colors include blue, pink, yellow, brown, black, and white. Some 19th-century glass makers called milky white opaque glass "opal glass". The name milk glass is relatively recent.
History of glass
"The tradition is that a merchant ship laden with nitrum being moored at this place, the merchants were preparing their meal on the beach, and not having stones to prop up their pots, they used lumps of nitrum from the ship, which fused and mixed with the sands of the shore, and there flowed streams of a new translucent liquid, and thus was the origin of glass."
History of glass
By 1696, after the patent expired, twenty-seven glasshouses in England were producing flint glass and were exporting all over Europe with such success that, in 1746, the British Government imposed a lucrative tax on it. Rather than drastically reduce the lead content of their glass, manufacturers responded by creating highly decorated, smaller, more delicate forms, often with hollow stems, known to collectors today as "Excise glasses". The British glass making industry was able to take off with the repeal of the tax in 1845.
Early glassmaking in the United States
The style of glassmaking changed by 1746 when the government passed the Glass Excise Bill, which taxed glass by weight; beginning in 1751 advertisements in a Boston newspaper made a reference to “new fashion” glass. Usually the phrase referred to the air twist stemmed glass or “wormed wine glasses” that had first been advertised in the Boston market in 1746. By 1761, glasses and decanters were also engraved or “flowered”. Glassmakers worked diligently to provide special glasses for specific purposes, and inevitably only the well-to-do could afford a full array of forms. The inventory of Governor Francis Fauquier’s glass is revealing, when the former Governor of Virginia died in 1768, he left: 5 beer glasses, 5 champagne glasses, 14 water glasses, 55 wine glasses, 59 syllabub glasses, 69 jelly glasses, 23 glass salvers, 15 decanters and 8 cruets. He also had three sets of salvers that made up into large pyramids; the largest pyramid was valued at £15. Such pyramids were advertised in the Boston press in 1772.
During the Federal Period, after the American Revolutionary War, Americans adopted new European styles. During the Revolutionary period, decoration was minimal. Although the American glass industry was making a strong beginning, considerable quantities were still imported. Cut glass was advertised in Baltimore as early as 1786, gaining popularity toward the end of the period. American production of blown three-mold glass began during the War of 1812. Glassmakers Henry William Stiegel and John Frederick Amelung had both tried to produce elaborate, fine table glass rivaling the European imports and both failed because there was not yet a market for the work they produced.
History of glass
The Venetian ability to produce this superior form of glass resulted in a trade advantage over other glass producing lands. Murano’s reputation as a center for glassmaking was born when the Venetian Republic, fearing fire might burn down the city’s mostly wood buildings, ordered glassmakers to move their foundries to Murano in 1291. Murano's glassmakers were soon the island’s most prominent citizens. Glassmakers were not allowed to leave the Republic. Many took a risk and set up glass furnaces in surrounding cities and as far afield as England and the Netherlands.
Ancient Greek art
Although glass was made in Cyprus by the 9th century BC, and was considerably developed by the end of the period, there are only a few survivals of glasswork from before the Greco-Roman period that show the artistic quality of the best work. Most survivals are small perfume bottles, in fancy coloured "feathered" styles similar to other Mediterranean glass. Hellenistic glass became cheaper and accessible to a wider population.