At Cornwall Glass we’re proud to be able to create custom glass projects for our clients and fulfill all of their other glass needs, but have you ever wondered about the history of glass? How is it possible for something that seems so simple be as complex as it truly is. With different colours, textures and levels of strength, let’s go through the looking glass.
“People had used naturally occurring glass, especially obsidian (the volcanic glass) before they learned how to make glass. Obsidian was used for production of knives, arrowheads, jewelry and money.The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested that Phoenician merchants had made the first glass in the region of Syria around 5000BC. But according to the archaeological evidence, the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500BC and the first glass vessels were made about 1500BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia.In the beginning it was very hard and slow to manufacture glass. Glass melting furnaces were small and the heat they produced was hardly enough to melt glass. But in the 1st century BC, Syrian craftsmen invented the blow pipe. This revolutionary discovery made glass production easier, faster and cheaper. Glass production flourished in the Roman Empire and spread from Italy to all countries under its rule.”
The glass making process has come a long way and the products that are able to be made keep improving as techniques and technology improves.