The Egyptians were foremost among ancient

peoples in their mastery of manufacturing

techniques, yet they did not begin to produce

glass in any quantity until the New Kingdom

shortly after 1500 B.C.E.  Earliest glass vessels

date from the reign of Thuthmosis III

(1479-1425 BCE) who conducted a number of

successful campaigns into Syria. Following his

Asiatic campaigns, glass vessel manufacture

was first established in Egypt. The causal

connection between those campaigns and the

rise of the glass industry in Egypt was probably

the result of the introduction of Syrian

craftsmen to the Egyptian workshops. During

the Dynasty XVIII when glass first begins to be

manufactured in ancient Egypt, the materials

necessary appear to have been imported into

Egypt in the form of “raw glass”. The

importation of glass stock and the immigration

of craftsmen required for the fabrication of

glass into finished products in Egypt were the

impetus for the Egyptian glass production.

The ancient Egyptian lexicon had no term for

glass and used an Egyptian phrase “stone of the

kind that flows.” Reticence on the part of the

ancient Egyptians with regard to their

reluctance either to describe the manufacture

of glass in texts or depict the process(es) in

their art has been attributed to an adherence to

secrecy.

The Egyptians began to produce glass in

quantity from the reign of Amenophis III

onwards (ca. 1390 BCE), far later than any of

their neighbors. All scholars agree that the

most ambitious examples of glass ever crafted

in ancient Egypt which were simultaneously

those which were technically most difficult to

manufacture and the largest in terms of size,

were created no very long after the Egyptians

began to manufacture. Examples of

multicolored glass fused together to fashion

incipient mosaic glass bowls and plaques are

attested as early as the reign of Amenhotep II.

Discoveries of glass making sites in the

industrial complex at Pi-Ramesses (Ramesses

in the Bible, Exodus 1:11), the capital of

Pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) at Qantir

in the Northeastern Delta shed much light on

Egyptian glass manufacture. At Pi-Ramesses,

ancient Egyptian glass appears to have been

actually made in bowl-furnaces and

subsequently colored in crucibles placed in

sophisticated installations.

In Egypt, glass-working was a royal monopoly.

No one but pharaohs, priests, and nobles

owned glass. Embedded in inlays, glass

enriched sumptuous thrones, golden funeral

marks, regal sarcophagi, and magical protective

jewelry. On the dressing tables of wealthy men

and women stood glass containers for rare

ointments, scents, cosmetics and oils as well as

a variety of glass jewelry, amulets, pendants

and ornaments.

The collapse of the New Kingdom was

apparently accompanied by such a decline in

Egypt’s glass industry that it has been stated

that the ancient Egyptians crafted no glass of

any interest in the interval between about 1000

and 400 B.C.E. until the reign of Nectanebo II

of the Thirtieth Dynasty (ca. 360-343 BCE)

when glass objects again become abundant,

especially those made of mosaic glass.

Nevertheless, glass workshops of the Third

Intermediate Period (1070-712 BCE) appear to

have further developed a nascent form of

mosaic glass by which rods of various colors

were fused, drawn out, cut lengthwise, and

placed in a mold in order to create the desired

effect. Alexandria, the new capital of Egypt

founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE has

long been thought to have been a major center

for the manufacture of Hellenistic glassware.

Mentioned by Cicero (106-43 BCE), the city's

reputation for highly prized glass objects

continued into the Roman Imperial period.