Archaeologists working in the eastern Nile Delta have uncovered the remains of large-scale glassmaking operations that are several hundred years older than researchers had believed, providing the first solid evidence about the glassmaking process in use, British & German researches recently reported. The glassworks at Piramesses, which probably began production around 1250 B.C, about 100 years after the reign of King Tutankhamun, used a two-stage process in which crushed quartz was heated with plant ash in ceramic beer jars to form a crude solid. After further pulverisation, the raw glass was heated to higher temperatures and coloured to form valuable ingots that were shipped to artisans in Egypt and throughout the Mediterranean region, the team reports in the journal Science. For the first time, it can be demonstrated that people made glass there and how they did it.
