People had used naturally occurring glass,especially obsidian(the volcanic glass)before they learned how to make glass.Obsidian was used for production of knives,jewelry and money.
The ancient Roman historian Pliny suggested thatphoenician merchants had made the first glass in the region of Syria around 5000BC.But according to the archaeological evidence,the first man made glass was in Eastern Mesopotamia and Egypt around 3500BC and the first glass vessels were made about 1500BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia.For the next 300 years,the glass industry was industry rapidly and then declined.In Mesopotamia it was revived in the 700BC and in Egypt in the 500's BC. For the next 500 years,Egypt,Syria and other countries along the eastern coast of the mediteranean Sea were centers for glass manufacturing.
In the beginning it was very hard and slow to manufacture glass.Glass melting furnaces were small and the heat they produced was hardly enough to melt glass.But in the 1st Century BC,Syrian cratsme -n invented the blow pipe.This revoutionary discovery made glass production easier,faster and cheap -er.Glass production flourished in the Roman Empire and spread from Italy to all countriess under its rule.In 1000AD the Egyptian city of Alexandria was the most important center of glass manufacture. Throughout Europe the miraculous art of making stained glass on churches and cathedrals across the continent reached its height in the finest Chatres and Conterbruy cathedral windows produced in the 13th and 14th Centuries.
