Location: Great Britai Fragment of a schematic human face in green iridescent glass, blown over a core of organic matter. The orbital cavities indicated by two profound depressions with the round bulbs clearly delineated, divided by a very long and thin nose. The mouth is reproduced by a small circular and simplified depression, as are the ears, on either side of the face.
In order to create this unique piece, glass was blown over a core made from a mixture of soil, mud, sand and water mixed with chopped straw as binding material.
From the type of fracture all over the perimeter of the artwork it is evident that the item was part of a larger decorative object, from which it was unkindly detached. The invention of glassblowing in the 1st century B.C. in the Syro-Palestinian region created a remarkable change in the use and availability of glass objects. Previously glass objects had been made by using different techniques, such as forming glass around a removable core or casting in a mold. The core-forming procedure involved coating molten glass around a core of dung and clay mixed with a small quantity of water and adhered to a rod. These glassforming methods although acknowledged and successful were though time-consuming and labor-intensive; in consequence, glass was produced in relatively small quantities and was not widely available. Glassblowing—in which molten glass is gathered on the end of a blowpipe and a vessel is formed by inflation and manipulation with tools—enabled craftsmen to create vessels quickly and in a wide range of shapes, making glassware affordable and available.
The surface of most utilitarian objects was not decorated; as glass objects were principally designed for everyday use, the majority of ancient glass preserved today, in complete or fragmentary form, is rather plain. Islamic glassmakers, or better said glassmakers who were active in Islamic lands since the 7th century had inherited the skills and craft of the late Roman and early Byzantine craftsmen. During the early Islamic period they learned and perpetuated traditional shapes, decoration, technology and techniques, wile at the same time experimenting with some new ones.
The Fatimid Caliphate (909-1171) spanned over a large area of North Africa, from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The dynasty ruled across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the centre of their power. During the Fatimid period the minor arts reached new heights in terms of both quality and quantity in the production of artwork. Highly skilled artisans and craftsmen produced extremely sophisticated artefacts in an array of media to meet the specific requests of an ambitious, refined and demanding clientele, from both the royal court and the financially florid urban areas. Fatimid patronage enabled glass manufacturers to use and apply the highest technological standards of the time to blowing, moulding, cutting and embossing their wares. The most exquisite objects were naturally reserved for the court, where princes and courtiers vied among each other to possess beautiful glass vessels and trinkets. With the spread of Islam outward from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, the figurative artistic traditions of the newly conquered lands profoundly influenced the development of Islamic art. Ornamentation in Islamic art came to include figural representations in its decorative vocabulary, which was drawn from a variety of sources. Although the often cited opposition to the depiction of human and animal forms holds true for religious art and architecture, in the secular sphere such representations have flourished in nearly all Islamic cultures. The Islamic resistance to the representation of living beings ultimately stems from the belief that the creation of living forms is unique to God, and it is for this reason that the role of images and image makers has been controversial. The strongest statements on the subject of figural depiction are made in the Hadith (Traditions of the Prophet), where painters are challenged to "breathe life" into their creations and threatened with punishment on the Day of Judgment. The Qur’an is less specific but condemns idolatry and uses the Arabic term musawwir ("maker of forms," or artist) as an epithet for God. Partially as a result of this religious sentiment, figures in painting were often stylized and, in some cases, the destruction of figurative artworks occurred. Iconoclasm was previously known in the Byzantine period and aniconism was a feature of the Judaic world, thus placing the Islamic objection to figurative representations within a larger context. As ornament, however, figures were largely devoid of any larger significance and perhaps therefore posed less challenge.