Glass 5000 B.C - 1900 A.D. A brief History Glass has been one of the most successful mediums used in modern art. In fact, the rich diversity of thought and craftsmanship in modern fine glass has made it possible to use the more recent concepts of form and design so successfully that those interested in other arts are turning to glass for inspiration, wrote Leloise Davis Skelley, author of Modern Fine Glass, published in New York in 1937. Today these words ring truer than ever. Archaeological findings and some conservative conjecture date certain Egyptian glassware at circa 5000 B.C., but a more accurate date would be the late predynastic period, before 3400 B.C., as shown by findings of pale green glass beads in graves of that time. Fairly definite evidence indicates that glass was made in northern Mesopotamia, today Iraq, about 2000 years B.C. Egyptian records dating back to 1500 B.C. and the Cartouche of King Thotmes III (1501-1449 B.C.) serve as definitive proof of the existence of glassworks in that period. The Phoenicians, however, are generally credited with the invention of the glassblower's pipe early in the Christian era, an event that completely revolutionized the process of glassmaking. The innovation created a new technique of wide application that, in a short period of time, oriented a large segment of the glassmaking industry
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