Glassmaking Technologies in the Late 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, 1351-1323 BCE
Description of Project
The XVIII Dynasty of ancient Egypt is likely the most familiar period of Egyptian history for people today. This is due to the major news event of 1923, when Howard Carter opened the sealed tomb of Tutankhamun, a teenage pharaoh who ruled from 1332 to 1323 BCE (Schultz 2010). King Tut, as he was nicknamed by the press, was laid to rest in the Valley of the Kings in a tomb full of precious objects, with rich drawings on its walls that illustrated the young king’s life. Many of those objects were made of, or decorated with, glass and the glassmaking process was included among the pictures in the tomb. These objects and illustrations constitute a trove of primary sources on glassmaking in the ancient world.
While glassmaking had been going on in Egypt as far back as 2500 BCE, its heyday took place during the XVIII Dynasty (Origins of Glassmaking 2002). There is clear evidence that there was mass production of glass during the reign of Tut’s ancestor, Akhenaten, known before his religious conversion as Amenhotep IV, who reigned from 1351-1334 BCE. It is the 28-year-period from 1351 BCE, the beginning of Aknehton’s reign, to 1323 BCE, the end of Tutankhamun’s, that I propose to cover in my essay.
The science of glassmaking is important to the history of the period because glass was a scarce commodity that was used in many ways, both practical and ornamental. As such, it was a valued trade item, which contributed to the Egyptian economy. It was also prized by royalty, who used it in jewelry and other decorative arts. There is evidence of a glass factory at Amarna, the city Akhenaten built and used as his headquarters. This provides further evidence that glassmaking was a valued enterprise and glass an important product. It is thought that the Egyptians made production glass at Amara and shipped it in bulk to other nations, where they would refine the raw glass into their own implements and ritual objects (Origins of Glassmaking 2002).
Sources for Final Paper
Primary Sources:
The Corning Museum of Glass, Ancient Egypt Collection. Corning, NY.
Kouchakji, Fahim, source. 7 January 1954. Two amethyst glass beads, circa 1400-1300 BCE. Demonstrates winding and trail-decorating techniques.
http://www.cmog.org/artwork/2-spherical-beads? search=collection%3A74cf46236907bbbb180b5315d8d6ad78&page=10
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Egyptian New Kingdom Collection, Amarna Period. New York, NY.
Lord Carnarvon from Maurice Nahman in Cairo, provenance. 1923. Three decorated blue jars, circa 1353-1323 BCE. Examples of the core-forming technique. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/548484
Secondary Sources:
Jackson, C.M., P.T. Nicholson and W. Gneisinger. 1998. “Glassmaking at Tell El-Amarna: An Integrated Approach.” Journal of Glass Studies 40 11-23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 24190496
Lilyquist, C. and Robert H. Brill. 1996. “A Collaborative Study of Early Glassmaking in Egypt.” Annales du 13e Congrès de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre. 1-9. http://www.cmog.org/library/collaborative-study-early-glassmaking-egypt-c-1500-bc
Nicholson, P. T. 2012. “Stone That Flows.” Journal of Glass Studies 54 11-23. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/24191269
Teeter, Emily. 1981. “Enameling in Ancient Egypt?” American Journal of Archaeology 85 no. 3 (July): 319. http://www.jstor.org/stable/504172
Bibliography
“Origins of Glassmaking.” 2002. Corning Museum of Glass. http://www.cmog.org/collection/ galleries/origins-of-glassmaking
Schulz, Matthias. 2010. “The Legacy of Howard Carter: Did King Tut’s Discoverer Steal from the Tomb?” Der Spiegel (January 15). http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the- legacy-of-howard-carter-did-king-tut-s-discoverer-steal-from-the-tomb-a-671993-2.html
