A rare and possibly unique early example of the glassmaker's art, this vase appears as if carved from jade, alabaster or some similar gemstone. It is really remarkable that this exquisite relic is a glass jar created from the front lines of civilization.

The first birth of glass is still shrouded in mystery. Glass, both ancient and modern, is a material usually made of silicon dioxide, or silica, that is characterized by its disorderly atoms. Unlike today, glass of those times was often opaque and saturated with color, and the source of the silica was crushed quartz pebbles, not sand. Archaeologists have found glass beads dating to as early as the third millenium BCE. Glazes based on the same materials and technology date earlier still. But it was in the Late Bronze Age (1600 BCE to 1200 BCE) that the use of glass seems to have really taken off, in Egypt, Mycenaean Greece and Mesopotamia, also called the Near East.

The peculiarity of this glass jar is that it was produced before the full-scale development of the glass industry in this ancient civilized world. It can be said that it is almost a miracle that a lump of glass that was fortuitously discovered was formed into a vessel. It is noteworthy that the Ancient Egyptians had a long history of crafting glass vessels, even before they ventured into creating thier great civilization. This is supported by the fact that the hieroglyphic word for “craftsman” uses an image of the tool used by these early craftsmen in fashioning stone vessels as its symbol.

In fact, as glass, it was even more precious to the age that created it. Time has in no way diminished that rarity, and we today can continue to delight in its astonishing beauty.