Cargo Of Glass

GLASS.- Glass was known in the ancient world from about 1600 B.C. in Egypt. In Egypt the Phoenicia glass was opaque (hazy, shadowy) and was used chiefly to make ornamental objects- especially beads, jewelry, and small bottles. The value of glass in ancient times may be indicated in Job where the value of glass is equated with that of gold and is used in parallel with jewels (Job 28:17).
The Egyptians and Phoenicians made small bottles for perfume by winding hot glass rods around a sand and clay core and then joining the layers by reheating them.
Transparent glass was not made until New Testament times as a luxury item. During this period, Alexandria, Egypt, became world famous as a center for the production of glassware. Such items as beakers, bowls, flasks, goblets, and bottles were made from the transparent glass.

Looking Back
No one knows when or where glass was discovered. But several thousand years ago someone found that a hard transparent material could be made by heating together sand and ashes.

(Research: Glass)
GLASS.- a generally transparent or translucent, lustrous, hard and brittle substance which has passed from a fluid condition, at high temperature, to a solid condition with sufficient rapidity to prevent the formation of visible crystals. Glass is formed in nature in three main ways. Rarely a silica glass is formed in small amounts when lightning strikes sand. The concentrated heat fusses the sand. The melt immediately solidifies forming a fragile tube of silica glass sometime sever feet long. Such tubes are called fulgrites (from the process of lightning) and are generally found in desert environments. Rarely, also, natural glass is formed as the result of localized melting of rock in a large fault zone, the glass generally being black and referred to as pseudotachylite. The most common natural occurrence of glass is as obsidian, a glassy volcanic rock of acidic composition used by early man for making small implements.

Manufactured glass consists primarily of a combination of silicic acid and alkali (sodium or potassium). The ingredients were rarely in a pure state, and sand generally contained some iron impurities. The green color they cause, due to ferrous silicate, may be neutralized by adding pyrolusite (manganese diocide). The resultant glass may be clear and transparent and look like still water. However, if there are numerous minute air bubbles left in the glass, it is translucent and has the appearance of ice.
Because of defective industrial processes no sizable glass containers, such as bottles or decanters, were manufactured prior to the Roman period. Pieces of glass sticks of various colors, reheated and welded together, were fashioned as pearls and elements of necklaces or other trinkets. These are commonly found in tombs together with miscellaneous jewelry. Small vases for perfumes and ungeuents (soothing or healing salve or ointment) were obtained by welding sticks of glass around a core of sand and clay built around a bar of metal; core and bar were subsequently removed. Such vessels, often of many colors, are always opaque. The above technique was common in ancient Egypt. Greek traditions, however, locate the origin of glass industry in Phoenicia, where, indeed, numerous objects showing a similar technique were found, together with articles of transparent glass which have often become iridescent because of oxidation.
The Hellenistic period is remarkable for its luxury vessels. Quantities of mosaic glass (used to form pictures or patterns) were made in Egypt, Rome, and Syro-Palestine.
A formidable technique employed in the Hellenistic period was that of sandwiching a cutout design of gold leaf or foil between two colorless glass surfaces.
Centers such as Tyre and Sidon became famous for the quantities of glass produced. Both Pliny (61-113 A.D., Roman Author) and Josephus (37-100 A.D. Jewish Historian) mentioned the Belus River near Acre as a source for excellent glassmaking sands. Many mold-blown vessels, some with religious symbols among the designs, are described as “Sidonian.”
Glassmaking quickly spread throughout the empire (Tyre and Sidon) and centers were established near many major cities. As the empire grew, glass was used for shipping and storage as well as table service.
The Phoenicians, so apt in all lines of trade and manufacture, naturally seized on glass-making as a most profitable art and they became very proficient in it. The earliest glass was not very transparent, since they did not know how to free the materials used from impurities. It has greenish or purplish tinge, and a large part of the examples we have of Phoenician glass exhibit this. But we have many examples of blue, red and yellow varieties which were purposely colored, and others quite opaque and of a whitish color, resembling porcelain. But both they and the Egyptians made excellent transparent glass also, and decorated it with brilliant coloring on the surface.
Phoenicia was the great center, and the quantities found in tombs of Syria and Palestine go to confirm the statement that this was one of the great industries of this people, to which ancient authors testify.Both the Egyptians and Phoenicians gained such proficiency in making transparent and colored glass that they imitate precious stones with such skill as to deceive the unwary. Necklaces are found composed of a mixture of real brilliants and glass imitations. Glass composed of different colors in the same piece was made by placing layers of glass wire, of different colors, one above the other and then fusing them so that they became united in a solid mass without intermingling. Colored designs on the surface were produced by tracing the patterns, while the glass was still warm and plastic, deep enough to receive the threads of colored glass which were imbedded in them. The entire piece was heated again sufficiently to fuse the threats and attach them to the body. The surface was then made even by polishing. By this process vessels and ornaments of very beautiful design were produced. Glass, in the strict sense, is rarely mentioned in Scripture, but it was certainly known to the Hebrews.


IN CONCLUSION – (Review) Note: The Seleucid Kings regarded Tyre of importance and gave it the right of asylum (an inviolable place of refuge and security). Trade and industry were again developed. The glass from Sidon and Tyre was excellent and had high reputation in all counties of the Western world.


HYPOTHETICAL INTERPRETATION – The Glass Production of Tyre: As glass…inflexibly rigid, Tyre produced a mix (an admixture) of material – opaque cultural jewels. As such, these precious ornamental [] treasures (of Phoenician orientation), were highly esteemed by the Western world.
Opaque as glass, Tyre’s abstruse creations were (unclear) difficult to understand, owing to the method adapted of transforming materials through an impure admixture – to produce the desired product.



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