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Discover the Glass

Featured in Tut’s Tomb

o celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, The Corning
Museum of Glass (CMoG) has partnered with a coalition of international museums to create a
Tshort film highlighting the glass funerary objects found inside the tomb. To see it, use this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3mzvmuULo4
This video shows how researchers are using modern science and photographic techniques to discover
the technical and artistic accomplishments of ancient Egyptian glassworkers. Corning Museum
Research Scientist Dr. Robert H. Brill examined the glass from Tutankhamun’s tomb when the artifacts
traveled to the United States in 1976. Brill was among the first to identify the quantity and quality of
glass found within the tomb.
At CMoG, the film will accompany its new installation, Early Glass from Ancient Egypt. Organized
by the museum’s Curator of Ancient Glass, Katherine Larson, the installation will showcase how the
ancient glass was created without the use of modern glassblowing techniques.

Egyptians Masters in the Art of Glass
The discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922-1923 has fascinated the world for King Tut’s burial mask, circa 1323 BCE,
more than a century. Among the many spectacular finds were exquisitely crafted and unique glass was constructed of two sheets of gold that were
objects – from massive headrests and writing palettes to glass vessels, beads, and thousands of tiny hammered together and then inlaid with glass –
inlays and miniature reverse glass paintings. once thought to be lapis lazuli – in the headdress,
While today we think of glass as a transparent, colorless collar, and beard.
material, the earliest glasses are mostly opaque and richly
colored, intended to resemble precious and semi-precious stones like turquoise and lapis lazuli. Glasses in
the Early Glass exhibit were luxuries, for use by the most privileged members of society.
Egyptian craftsmen were leaders and innovators of the earliest glass industries. Intensive glass
production began in the Middle East and Mediterranean areas more than 3,500 years ago. Glassworkers
were able to make and work glass at temperatures exceeding 2000° Fahrenheit (1100° Celsius).
According to Larson, “The discovery of the tomb set off a wave of Egyptomania—a frenzy for all things
ancient Egyptian—in Europe and America. This passion was expressed in a variety of forms, from media
to dress to interior furnishings, including glass. However, the glass itself from the tomb was largely not
recognized as such at the time; old reports often identify the bands of blue on the burial mask, for instance,
as lapis lazuli. It is only with recent scientific and technical study that they have been identified properly
as glass.”

Jar

Made in Egypt, probably sometime
between 1399 and 1300 BCE

The earliest Egyptian glass vessels came in a
variety of forms. Due to their small size,
most were used to hold perfumes, cosmetics,
and other precious substances. Glass bowls
and beakers for drinking appeared toward
the end of the Late Bronze Age, around the
1100s BCE.

Portrait Inlay of Pharaoh Akhenaten Faience Marsh Bowl with Fish

Made in Egypt about 1353-1336 BCE Made in Egypt, probably sometime between 1550 and 1350 BCE

The bowl is faience, an ancient material made from
crushed quartz pebbles, plant ashes, and copper.
It has a surface layer of glassy material.
The earliest man-made glasses were made from
the same ingredients, heated to higher temperatures
in order to fully fuse.

Bowl

Made in Egypt, probably sometime between Cheetah ornamentation for a piece of furniture from
1200 and 1085 BCE, said to have been Tutankhamun’s tomb, made of gold leaf over wood.
found near Deir-el-Bahari, Egypt. The eyes are glass inlay. Photograph by Robert Brill.

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