Late Bronze Age Glass Production at Qantir-Piramesses, Egypt Thilo Rehren 1 * and Edgar B. Pusch 2 It has been uncertain whether the glass produced during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) originated in Egypt or Mesopotamia. Here we present evidence for the production of glass from its raw materials in the eastern Nile Delta during the LBA. Glass was made in workshops that were separate from where the produc- tion of objects took place. The initial melting of the raw materials to semi- finished glass was done at temperatures of 900- to 950-C, followed by coloration and ingot production at 1000- to 1100-C. Large numbers of Late Bronze Age (LBA) glass artifacts are known from Mesopotamia and Egypt, roughly dating between 1500 and 1000 B.C. They are made from soda-lime-silica glass with elevated levels of potash and magnesia, and are intensively colored and opacified by metal oxides to emulate precious stones, notably turquoise and lapis lazuli. Although several ar- chaeological sites in western Asia and Egypt show evidence of the production of glass vessels in artistic or secondary glass workshops ( 1), the location of primary glass production sites has been enigmatic. Here we describe evidence for glassmaking found in recent excavations at Qantir- Piramesses in the eastern Nile Delta ( 2). Several fragments of worked glass are known from Qantir, but not the debris that is typical of secondary glass workshops. Instead, ceramic fragments with glass attached on the inside abound, ranging from almost-complete vessels to tiny fragments; other evidence includes the presence of glass-related slag and unshaped glass fragments. Glassmaking vessels or archaelogical finds. The most diagnostic elements of the glass works at Qantir are cylindrical vessels or glass-coloring crucibles (3, 4), for which no do- mestic parallel is known. So far, about 1100 fragments have been recovered, representing a minimum of 250 to 300 vessels. About 90% of these have external base diameters between 12 and 20 cm. They taper slightly and have rim di- ameters that are about 2 cm larger than that of the base (Fig. 1). The wall ranges from about 2 cm thick near the base to 0.6 to 1.3 cm near the rim. The average height of the vessels is 15 cm, based on the few complete profiles known. The fabric fits into Vienna System I.E.01 (5). Almost all fragments have a thin layer of lime on their inner side, thought to be a parting layer, which prevented the liquid glass from being contami- nated by the ferruginous clay and sticking to the ceramic of the vessels, thus facilitating the re- lease of the finished glass ingot from the crucible (6, 7). In addition to this internal lime layer, many fragments show an outer layer of a differ- ent ceramic fabric, typically several millimeters thick. This is mostly a mixture of crushed lime and quartz sand, with some clay as a binder, or Nile clay tempered with lime and chaff. This outer wrap is not strongly bonded to the vessels and is often rather fragile. Most fragments show evi- dence of being ‘‘hot’’ or ‘‘very hot’’; very few are ‘‘cold’’ ( 8 , 9). Many larger pieces show two or three temperature grades in different locations, in- dicating that they were heated unevenly. In hot vessels, the lime layer has reacted with the ceramic body to form a bottle-green interface glass layer. A key find is object 00/0344, inventory num- ber 3108, a substantially preserved crucible filled with a heavily corroded block of raw glass (Fig. 2). This glass contains abundant quartz grains in two distinct groups of shape and size: A few relatively large and rounded sand grains are mixed with large quantities of highly angular, very fine quartz dust. The sand grains include rare dark minerals and may represent contam- ination. The quartz dust is similar to crushed quartz, thought to be the main silica source of LBA glassmaking. For some reason, the pro- cessing of this charge was abandoned before the batch material had fused completely, in effect preserving much of the original raw material. A second type of fragment with attached glass is most likely a variant of the common ovoid jar (10), adapted for use in the glassworks by the addition of a lime-rich layer on the in- side, similar to the parting layer in the cylin- drical vessels. Only one fragment has evidence of an outer ceramic layer, and none show any indication of localized heating. Most fragments fall in the thermal group ‘‘warm’’ or just about ‘‘hot’’; heavily vitrified examples are absent. Nine fragments are purpose-made funnel- shaped rim extensions. They form a right-angle triangle in cross section and have a groove in the short side that fits over the rims of the crucibles and a protrusion on the long side that reaches into the crucibles (Fig. 3). They were not pre- fired and were most likely fitted in their unfired state to the crucibles. The protrusion was luted to the upper inside of the vessels for a tight fit, enabling the long side to act as a slope or funnel leading into the crucible. The surface of the long side is now covered by a thin corroded glass film, indicating that glass, probably as crushed powder, was added into the hot crucibles, using the rim extension as a funnel. Many rim shards have diagnostic ruptures and the remains of a lute running parallel to the rim at a distance of between 1 and 2 cm, indicating that such ex- tensions were much more frequent than the small number of identified fragments indicates. Several ‘‘cold’’ jar fragments were found without the characteristic lime layer, containing RESEARCH ARTICLES 1 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK. 2 Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, Am Steine 1-2, D- 31134, Hildesheim, Germany. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: th.rehren@ucl.ac.uk Fig. 1. Glass crucible 84/ 0088. The scale is in cen- timeters. Note the area of intense vitrification at the front left-hand side (a hot spot) and the lime-rich parting layer on the inside. 17 JUNE 2005 VOL 308 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org 1756