How did the
Egyptians guess that it is possible to do things without using clay, from glass
alone, that is, from glaze alone? Another chance prompted them to this thought.
Some potter covered his pot with a mixture of sand and soda too carelessly,
sloppy; and then, instead of a thin, even film, a clot, a lump of glaze, turned
out. This lump was so brilliant and beautiful, it looked like a gem!
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| Ancient Glass Beads |
The potter was a
resourceful person: he decided to make a colored ball from glaze alone. He
succeeded. So, without suspecting it, he discovered a new branch of human art -
glassmaking.
Many, many
centuries ago, the woman named Hatshepsut was a pharaoh of Egypt. She died by
our standards early, in the thirty-second year of life. According to Egyptian
custom, her body was turned into a mummy, laid in a sarcophagus and immured in
dark rocks at the foot of the Libyan mountains. The luxurious tomb of
Hatshepsut hid deep in the rocks; entangled tunnels with a carefully disguised
entrance led into it. This was a necessary precaution: it was necessary to
protect the tomb from the robbers.
No one has
broken the silence of the tomb for more than three thousand years. And then the
French archaeologist Lorre opened the way to it. And here is what he saw: two
small stone freaks guarded the tomb. Sacred beetles - scarabs hung on chains on
their chests. The freaks eyes were made of rock crystal. They flashed so
terribly when a ray of light fell on them that almost all the workers fled,
seized with horror.
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| Hatshepsut - Pharaoh Woman |
But the
archaeologist was most interested in not a golden mask and not a precious
diadem, but beads. They were made of glass. A necklace of greenish-black shiny
glass hugged the wrinkled, dry neck of the mummy. The beads were large, uneven.
On each of the beads, it was possible to make out the inscription carved in
hieroglyphs - the name of the queen. These small plain pieces of glass were
made three thousand four hundred years ago!
