Lot Essay
PUBLISHED:
D. Barag, A Note on a Mesopotamian Bottle, J. G. S., VI, 1964, pp. 9ff., figs 1-3.
Although man-made glass has been known and used as a glaze since the 4th millennium B.C. and used for jewellery and beads since the 3rd millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia, the technique for forming hollow glass vessels was not developed until the mid 2nd millennium B.C. The method involved forming a sand or clay core which was dipped in molten glass or wound with a heavy glass thread until covered. Further coloured threads combed into the desired patterns or coloured blobs were then applied and marvered; the vessel was finally ground and polished, and the core removed.
Core-formed vessels from the mid 2nd millennium B.C. from Egypt are well know but few examples survive from Mesopotamia. For a discussion of the type, see D. Barag, Mesopotamian Glass vessels of the second millennium B.C., notes on the Origin of the Core Technique, J.G.S., IV, 1962.
This piece can be paralleled with similar fragments found at Assur (J.G.S., IV, 1962, p.8, fig.1; p.14, fig.5) and Nuzu (Ibid., p.12) and with another fragment from Alalakh, Level III (Sir Leonard Woolley, Alalakh, An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana in Hatay, 1937-1949, London 1955, p.301, no.1, fig.74b:1); also D. Barag, Glass and Glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 1970, pp. 131-199, especially p. 154, fig. 42. Professor Barag in ch. 3 "Contacts between the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian Glass Industries during the XVIIIth Dynasty", suggests that the first core-formed glass vessels were made in North Mesopotamia (the Hurrian-Mitannian sphere of influence) and imported to Egypt where, towards the end of the 15th Century B.C., they developed their own style
D. Barag, A Note on a Mesopotamian Bottle, J. G. S., VI, 1964, pp. 9ff., figs 1-3.
Although man-made glass has been known and used as a glaze since the 4th millennium B.C. and used for jewellery and beads since the 3rd millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia, the technique for forming hollow glass vessels was not developed until the mid 2nd millennium B.C. The method involved forming a sand or clay core which was dipped in molten glass or wound with a heavy glass thread until covered. Further coloured threads combed into the desired patterns or coloured blobs were then applied and marvered; the vessel was finally ground and polished, and the core removed.
Core-formed vessels from the mid 2nd millennium B.C. from Egypt are well know but few examples survive from Mesopotamia. For a discussion of the type, see D. Barag, Mesopotamian Glass vessels of the second millennium B.C., notes on the Origin of the Core Technique, J.G.S., IV, 1962.
This piece can be paralleled with similar fragments found at Assur (J.G.S., IV, 1962, p.8, fig.1; p.14, fig.5) and Nuzu (Ibid., p.12) and with another fragment from Alalakh, Level III (Sir Leonard Woolley, Alalakh, An Account of the Excavations at Tell Atchana in Hatay, 1937-1949, London 1955, p.301, no.1, fig.74b:1); also D. Barag, Glass and Glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 1970, pp. 131-199, especially p. 154, fig. 42. Professor Barag in ch. 3 "Contacts between the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian Glass Industries during the XVIIIth Dynasty", suggests that the first core-formed glass vessels were made in North Mesopotamia (the Hurrian-Mitannian sphere of influence) and imported to Egypt where, towards the end of the 15th Century B.C., they developed their own style