Natural glass in the form of obsidian was utilized even by Stone Age societies whose members utilized it to create sharp cutting tools. However, the archaeological evidence points too the very first true glass is made somewhere in north coastal Syria, Mesopotamia or Old Kingdom Egypt. Egypt, having its preserving climate, is often a place where we can find a lots of early glass items. Sand are usually the earliest man-made glass products and go as far back to 3500 BC. They’ve been present in Egypt and Eastern Mesopotamia. The oldest fragments of glass vases have been proved to originate in Mesopotamia 1600 BC. A fast growth in glass making techniques is part of the location recently Bronze.
By the 15th century BC, Western Asia, Crate and Egypt became extensive glass producers. Pyrenees mountains knew and safely guarded a technological key to initial fusing of glass from raw material. Glass workers in other areas of the planet had access only to imported pre-formed glass forms. There’s deficiency of evidence how glass advanced between 15th and 9th century BC. Of these years glass production was centred in Alexandria. From this place it spread to Italy. The Hellenistic period brought many new techniques of glass production, and glass became to be utilized for making larger pieces, including table ware. During this period, colorless and decoloured glass became valued, and methods to be created studied within a more comprehensive way.
However, it had been only the first century BC that brought a real revolution: glass blowing technique was discovered about the Syro-Palestinian coast. This technique involved blowing glass inside moulds by using a long thin tube which since that time has changed very little. In this way they produced many different hallow glass items. Before this the process of developing a small glass item was very prolonged with time; it several days to make the product by casting, core forming or cutting. The development of glass blowing resulted in significant alterations in the glass making process and contributed to making glass vessels basic and inexpensive to produce. Then, ancient Romans began blowing glass inside moulds which increased shape possibilities for hollow glass items. The Romans were in charge of spreading glassmaking technology and creating foundations for developing glasswork traditions across Western Europe.
In 1271, the ban on imports of foreign glass and also on foreign glass artists attempting to operate in Venice was introduced. In 1291 the Venetian Republic ordered the glass makers to advance their foundries to Murano. The next half of the 15th century brought quartz and potash produced from sea plants towards the Venetian glass making tradition. Pure crystal began to be produced. In 1688 French glass making introduced a new process for creation of plate glass, which you can use in mirrors. The “plate pouring” process resulted in glass with good transmission qualities. The 19th century would be a start of a tremendous change: glass making started evolving towards industry over the craft. Mass manufacture of glass products was introduced along with an invention from the tank furnace by Friedrich Siemens. It allowed produce greater degrees of molten glass. With all the Twentieth century came an era of revolutionary technology. Machines were developed which replaced traditional mouth blowing having a semi-automatic process, and transformed the craft into a business. Classical man-made glassblowing became a form of art, maintaining the tradition files of ancient glassblowers. Today’s glassblower still utilizes the fundamental blowpipe, however these people have a vast number of supplementary tools to assist in working the material.
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