Recently I bought this beautiful book ‘The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World’ Edited by Brian M. Fagan. This book has one complete chapter dedicated to Glass. The book effortlessly transported me into a time when we humans lived in sync with earth and not as the most powerful creatures who’s hunger for resources never seems to slow down.
The book talks about the origins of glass; this is no ordinary story of invention where a scientist had his eureka moment. Instead its a story which can easily qualify to be in a children’s bed time story book. It goes like this…
“Once a ship belonging to some traders in natural soda (nitrum) put ashore here ( near the river Belus) and that they scattered along the shore to prepare a meal. Since, however, no stones for supporting their cauldrons were forthcoming, they rested them on lumps of soda from their cargo. When these became heated and were completely mingled with the sand on the beach a strange liquid flowed in steams; and this, it is said, was the origin of glass. (Pliny the Elder, 1st century AD). So the origin of glass is some what obscure but long predates the account given by Pliny the Elder.” (The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World’ Edited by Brian M. Fagan. Page 49)
Honestly up till now I always thought that glass was invented some where during the industrial revolution and of course I was wrong by hundreds and thousands of years. Well so much for my history knowledge. I found few other interesting notes which I found interesting.
* The first known objects in glass were beads and amulets dating to 2500 BC from Mesopotamia region.
* The first glass vessels was probably made before 1500 BC around western asia.
* Glass Blowing, a technique use to produce our artistic awards such as Regency Crystal Award and Signature Crystal Award was discovered sometime around 1st century BC on teh coast of Syria.
* Float glass or window glass which we use for awards was a roman invention used in Italy around 1st century AD.
(The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World’ Edited by Brian M. Fagan. Page 49-51)
As I mentioned all the above information is from the above mentioned book if this information is not correct please leave me a note and I would correct it here for every ones reference.
