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434 pages About
the author Reviews First Page: Chapter
1
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For information about the origins of the glassmakers of Altare, see Fact Paper 25
See Fact Paper 6-I about the history of the process of vitrification
See Fact Paper 13-I and 13-II, Craftsmanship, a Judaic Tradition
See Fact Paper 6-II, Glassmaking, a Judaic Tradition
ABOUT THE BOOK
© 1991 Samuel Kurinsky, all rights reserved
The book enlightens both Jewish and glassmaking history.
The Jews were integrally associated with the art of glassmaking over several millennia. They were the exclusive glassmakers in the world for much of that time. The peculiar parallel between Jewish movement and of the art of glassmaking through the Dihtmlora reveals startling historical connotations.
Many myths are shattered in this book in the course of following the adventurous path of the art of glassmaking and the Jews from their common Akkadian roots through Canaan, Egypt, Persia, Rome, China and the West. The author draws upon a wealth of archaeological, biblical, archival and historical material. A beam of light is cast into the dark recesses of history in which subject peoples suffer the indignity of having their accomplishments obliterated by their conquerors, a process the author terms "Institutionalized Obfuscation."
During his association with the Venetian glassmakers, the author uncovered an intriguing symbiosis between the Jews and the art of glassmaking. The revelation impelled him to launch an eight-year campaign of research that led him across three continents and 4000 years of human history. He discovered that the art of glassmaking, born in Mesopotamia, was introduced into the world at large by the Jews, an enthralling odyssey that has never been told.
Until now!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
of
The Glassmakers; An Odyssey of the Jews
Acknowledgements
The Art
Preface
The People
Introduction
- Zakhukhit: The Akkadian Connection
- The Secret Art: The Hurrian Connection
- Egyptian [sic] Glass; The Hyksos Connection
- Ingots of Glass: The Canaanite Connection
- The Iron Age: The Israelite Connection
- The Second Dihtmlora: The Roman Connection
- The Glassblowers: The Eretz Israel Connection
- The Linen, Glass, Spice, and Silk Route: The Chinese Connection
- The Sassanian Dihtmlora: The Babylonian Connection
- The Jewish Khazars: The Russian Connection
- The Byzantines: The Balkan Connection
Bibliography
IndexEXCERPT FROM THE PREFACE
ofThe Glassmakers;
An Odyssey of the JewsThe mysterious circumstances under which a community of glassmakers appeared during the early 12th century in the rugged Appenine Mountains of northwestern Italy lured the author into an investigation of the origin and identification of the members of that community. The glassmaking commune appeared in a period for which records are few and information is scarce. The revelations that erupted from the author’s search produced more questions than answers, as is inevitably the case with research. Every new discovery opened new areas of inquiry which in turn became subject to an ongoing investigation. The search propelled the author on an odyssey that spanned a good portion of three continents and led him back through 4000 years of human history.
For many years the author was associated with the art of glassmaking as a marketing consultant for various Muranese vetrerias. No one associated with the art can remain unaffected by it. The drama of vitric production enthralls the observer; the magical transformation of stony silicates into an ethereal material is a spectacular process and the transformation of that material into delicate artifacts by the artistic tour-de-force of the masters of the art is an intriguing, awe-inspiring event. The consummate skill with which the masters gather from white-hot crucibles the yellow-hot metal (as the mass of molten material is called), the deftness with which the glowing, viscous material is transformed into exquisite works of art with the crudest of tools, captivate all attendant to the process.
It is an art with which one truly falls in love. Once bitten by the bug, fascination of the process becomes part of one’s psyche, an enchantment to which all who have been associated with the art will willingly testify.
The process of vitrification is unique among the arts in that it was invented only once in all of human history. The knowledge of that process wound its way out into the world in ever-widening spirals with the people who developed it and passed their knowledge on to succeeding generations. Lithic craftsmanship, pottery-making, weaving, metalsmithing, basketry, and, in fact, all other arts spawn independently within human societies and define the cultures of the peoples which compose humanity. These arts ineluctably grew in sophistication in a predictable, evolutionary process. Cultures are measured by the amount these arts attained along this human scale.
The art of glassmaking is missing among these measures. Its appearance occurred at times irrespective of, and often at odds with, the magnitude of the maturity of the cultures in which it appeared.
Therein lies our story. The research into this puzzling history revealed a symbiotic relationship between the wandering Jews and the art of glassmaking that had hardly been noted. Still further, it exposed gross historiographical mythology and warranted a new ordering of accepted concepts regarding the technological evolution of western civilization.
This book is frankly and consciously written from the protagonist position of one who seeks to fill the voids in the substantial and significant contribution the Jews have made to western civilization and to the world. It makes no pretense of presenting a balanced rendition of history but merely seeks to span the particular gaps that pertain to the Jews and to the art of glassmaking. Those gaps are considerable, enough to fill many more such volumes.
Jewish slaves built the Colosseum in Rome and mined the iron and copper of Sardinia, Spain, and Sicily. Jewish artisans introduced silk agronomy and industry into Europe. They were the smiths and dyers and weavers and tanners and shoemakers and tailors and loggers and wagoners. They minted coins for European nobility. They were merchants at the local markets. They formed the core of international trade, inasmuch as they were uniquely able to issue a letter of credit in one country and be assured of its being honored in another country months and even years later. They were also the doctors and the accountants. They were councillors to kings. Yes, they were also moneychangers and bankers, occupations whose transactions were placed on record and largely preserved, for taxes had to be paid and they often involved the finances of the various states. The Jews who were involved in financial activity thereby became far more visible than did the millions of Jews engaged in the other mundane activities of which records are sparse and indeterminate.
Kings often implored the Jews to emigrate into their countries, offering extraordinary enticements to gin the benefits of the skills and knowledge and the literacy possessed by the Jews and lacking in the native populations. Just as often the Jews were discarded, or worse, when disposal of the Jews served the ruler’s purposes, or when the Jews, unbudgeable from their democratic and religious precepts, thereby became considered a threat to authority or the rival religions. It was learned, to the author’s great astonishment, that glassmaking was deemed a "Jewish trade" from ancient times well into the present era. Unusual enticements were proffered to glassmakers to encourage their immigration into various realms, for it was a secret trade, and only the Semitic migrants were privy to its secrets. It was none other than St, Jerome who complained that glassmaking was among the trades with which the Semites "captured the Roman world"!
The art of glassmaking appeared during the latter part of the 3rd millennium BCE. The art was associated with the progenitors of the Jewish people, who derived mainly from that Mesopotamian milieu. The spread of the art into both the eastern and western worlds may be attributed in no small measure to that common genesis. The path of the dissemination of the art is peculiarly parallel to the dispersion of the Hebrew people. It seems that wherever relevant facts emerge, that art and that people merge. When the two histories are placed side by side, a parallel pattern appears in which the association between the people and the art becomes plainly apparent.
From their beginnings in Akkadia, westward across Arameia into Canaan, eastward back into Persia and across the desert into China, across North Africa into Iberia, across Anatolia into Greece and Italy, up the Seine and Rhine valleys and across the Hungarian plains, across Germany into the Pale of the Polish and Russian plains, Jews sought opportunity or refuge, carrying their arts, science, philosophy, religion, and the art of glassmaking with them.
FIRST PAGE OF CHAPTER 1
ZAKHUKHIT
The Akkadian Connection
The art of glassmaking was born in Akkadia, the Biblical Shinar, the home of the tribe of Terach, who was the father of Abraham.
The Bible relates that Abraham was born in Ur, in the land of Shinar. Yet the existence of such a land, and such a city, was neither known nor sought until relatively recently, and when found it was hardly acknowledged. In 1985 J. E. Taylor, the British consul at Basra in southern Iraq, acting at the request of the British Museum, was instructed by his foreign office to investigate the mounds of the area. He did, and digging into a mound known to the Bedouin tribesmen as Tel Maqayyar, or "The Mound of Pitch," he unearthed a number of peculiar tablets. The tablets were incised with rows of intricate impressions which seem to have been made by small birds tracking back and forth across wet clay. Taylor was entirely unaware that these inscriptions identified the site as that of the fabled city of Ur.
Seventy-five years passed before anyone became aware of that fact. Taylor had no scientific background or deep-seated archaeological interest and his crude excavation tore away the top layers of ancient structures, mindlessly scattering bricks over the countryside. The curious tablets and cylinders of baked clay were covered with inscriptions and titillated Taylor’s interest although he had no inkling of their importance. He forwarded the esoteric objects to the British Museum where his discovery made hardly a stir. No one could read the cuneiform writing. The clay tablets were stowed away deep in the archival vaults of the museum and forgotten,
Taylor dug for two short seasons. Finding neither gold
nor gems, nor....
[...End of First Page of Chapter 1...]
FIRST PAGE OF CHAPTER 2
THE SECRET ART
The Hurrian Connection
The origin of the process by which siliceous stone is
transformed into glass is referred to by the singular because it appears
to have been invented only once in all of human history. The peculiar
and particular conditions under which glass is artificially formulated
and produced remained a jealously guarded secret through the ages, a secret
contained within privileged groups. The custodians of the processes employed
in the production of glass were generally a family or other closely knit
group who transmitted their closely guarded knowledge from one generation
to the next. The seventeenth century BCE tablet, the
very first tablet which provides a name for glass and the formula by which
it is made, set a pattern of secrecy which endured for 4000 years, well
into the twentieth century.[The tablet
was referred to in chapter 1. Its inscription contained the Akkadian name
for glass: Zuka(k)-I, apparently the origin of the Hebrew name
Zakhukhit]. The ancient
tablet gave its translators much trouble, for it was deliberately cryptic.
R. Campbell Thompson had to deal with the fact that the oldest written
record of the art of glassmaking, inscribed in cuneiform Akkadian on an
Assyrian tablet, was also rendered in an obtuse cryptogrammic script,
deliberately employed to conceal the knowledge from all but the initiated
of the glassmaker’s society. Thompson did not find this literary camouflage
unusual. He noted that "it has always been the outrageous custom
of certain learned circles to conceal their knowledge from the lay public
in a fog of jargon, a pomposity of mannerisms, due, it is hoped, less
to personal vanity than to professional protection." Thompson quotes
a Kassite tablet of the mid-second millennium:...
[End of first page of chapter 2...]
EGYPTIAN [SIC] GLASS
The Hyksos Connection
The process of producing glass first took place in Akkadia, a fact demonstrable by the antiquity of the artifacts found in the region and substantiated by the existence of the requisite technology. Yet the legend that the art originated in Egypt persists, and although a negative fact is more difficult to substantiate, it can be reasonably argued that the Egyptians did not and could not have invented the process, not merely because the most ancient manufactured glass was not found in Egypt but because ancient Egypt never developed the pyrotechnology requisite for the production of glass.
The evidence that the art, the artisans and the artifacts were foreign to ancient Egypt has far-reaching ramifications. At the core of the issue is the realization that the requisite pyrotechnology remained secluded in a corner of western Asia for two millennia, the same area in which the axled wheel emerged and the Bronze and Iron Ages materialized. Thus the art of glassmaking provides the lens with which we can focus upon that area for a clear view of the evolution of civilization.
So firmly accepted was the legend of ancient Egyptian
glassmaking that, until recently, little effort was made to substantiate
its verity. The quality of scientific lore regarding the subject can be
judged by the circumstance pointed out in a dissertation by Earle R, Caley
wherein he notes that until 1957 only 14 ancient Egyptian glass items
had been analyzed by Neumann...
[...End of first page of chapter 3...]
INGOTS OF GLASS
The Canaanite Connection
A 65-foot-long merchant vessel, which sank off the southwest coast of Turkey at the turn of the fourteenth century BCE with all of its considerable cargo stowed securely on board, is one of the most spectacular archaeological finds of recent times. The cargo of the ship, much of it intact and reasonably well preserved, provides an unprecedented insight into the period. Included in that cargo were seven-inch-diameter ingots of raw glass, the earliest ever found, which were clearly on their way to a destination where they would be remelted and transformed into precious jewels, amulets, furniture inlays, goblets or other vessels. The shipwreck lies 140 feet and more below the surface of the sea along one of the sea lanes traversed by the Myceneans and the Canaanites.
The ill-fated vessel sank off Ulu Burun, the third of a series of lonely intrusions of the Taurus Mountains into the sea south of the picturesque seaside town of Kas. No shore exists, for the walls of the jagged promontory plunge directly into the sea. There, posed against the massive cliff, a white vessel rests at anchor: the research vessel of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), Virazon, is a fairly sizable vessel, yet it appears puny, overpowered by the sheer wall of the mountain which provides a backdrop to the scene. It is anchored 50 meters offshore directly above the ancient vessel which lay at the bottom untouched for 3300 years.
The archaeologist’s encampment is implanted at various
levels on protrusions of the rocky precipice. Ladders spring from one
jerry-built screened enclosure to another fixed into the cliff above it;
the research room...
'
[...End of first page of chapter 4...]
THE IRON AGE
The Israelite Connection
The crossroads of Canaan became an area of contention between the surrounding powers with the erosion of the hegemony of the Egyptian overlords in the area. Struggles with the Hittites and the Amorites, the intrusions of the Sea-Peoples and others all contributed to unstable conditions and to a hiatus in technological development. Stagnation continued until the re-emergence of local control spurred the dramatic birth of a new, progressive era. The new seminal era unfolded in the latter half of the thirteenth century BCE, the very period attributed biblically and archaeologically to the settlement of Israelite refugees on the hills of Canaan. Two outstanding events were instrumental in transforming the character of civilization: One was the efflorescence of alphabetic writing, which first appeared during the reign of the Semitic kings over Egypt, the much-maligned Hyksos, forecasting a revolutionary surge in communication and in the transference of knowledge. The second event was the proliferation of advanced pyrotechnology and metallurgy which ushered in the Iron Age. We quote from the writings of William G. Dever, a brilliant archaeologist who, far from following biblical lore, renounced even the use of the term "Biblical Archaeology" as being scientifically unjustifiable. Dever, adhering to strict archaeological evidence, identifies the advent of the Iron Age with that of the establishment of "hundreds of small unwalled" Israelite villages of the late thirteenth-twelfth centuries:
"The economy of these Iron I villages was largely
self-sufficient, based mainly...
[...End of first page of chapter 5...]
THE SECOND DIASPORA
The Roman Connection
It is unlikely that any ancient Roman ever made glass. Glassmaking technology, although already 2000 years old at the time of the birth of the Roman Empire, was unknown to the Romans until after they had launched their well-ordered campaign to conquer the world, Once they had become conquerors, Romans could scarcely deign to engage in the rigorous, perverse, sweaty toil which the production of glass and its products entailed, even if they had become privy to the secrets of the trade. Roman law was designed to maintain a facade of superiority over subject peoples; the law precluded the Roman upper classes from engaging in such a lowly activity and dissuaded any Roman citizen from so doing, for to do so was to stoop to the level of a slave, or, at best, to the demeaning social status of a foreign laborer,
Conquering people disdain to engage in manual labor; artisanship is scarcely a goal to which conquerors htmlire, Arts and crafts are regarded by a self-styled master race as odious occupations relegated to inferior peoples. The product is admired, but the practice is scorned. Among the privileges accruing to conquerors is the power to oblige the vanquished, whether as slaves, serfs, or freemen to perform all manual labor. The Romans were no different in this regard than were the Greeks, whose culture they had absorbed, especially when it came to abjuring participation in as difficult a discipline as making glass and glassware, "To the Greeks glass was something new; to the Romanssomething unknown," unequivocally states...
[...End of first page of chapter 6...]
THE GLASSBLOWERS
The Eretz Israel
Connection
"To the Greeks glass was something new; to the Romans something unknown," unequivocally states the English glass historian W. A. Thorpe, and adds in emphasis, "The Romans, that is, the Latin-Italian people were not glassmakers and not glass minded." The ancient Greeks were barely familiar with glass objects and entirely ignorant of the technology by which glass was produced. The process of glassmaking was unknown to the Greeks until after Alexander the Great invaded Asia on his miraculous march of conquest. The mechanics of the art remained a mystery to the Greeks long after they had become the rulers of the area in which the art was being practiced. There is no reference whatsoever to the manufacture of glass in ancient Greece. The very first such reference to a glassmaker in Greece appears in the Christian era: A sepulchral inscription then provides us with the name Euphrasios, a Jewish glassmaker who died in Athens.
"We look in vain, complains Mary Luella Trowbridge,
the author of the monumental work, Philological Studies in Ancient
Glass, after combing diligently through Greek and Latin literature
for a reference to glassmaking. Trowbridge’s search led her to her conclusion
that: "As a foreign product, its nature was not sufficiently understood
[by the Greeks] to prevent it from becoming confused with other substances."
The few references to glass objects in ancient Greek literature were invariably
made in a foreign context. Theophastrus was the first Greek to refer to
glass, and not having a specific word for it, he used the Greek word Kyanos,(
a term for glaze or paste similar to that used for the production of faience).
Theophastrus exhibited his lack of knowledge of the substance by proclaiming
that "there are three..."
[...End of first page of chapter 7...]
THE LINEN, GLASS,
SPICE, AND SILK ROUTE
The Chinese Connection
An emperor of China, intrigued by the sparkling imitation jades and colorful
eye-beads which had been brought into China for centuries by Western traders,
upon learning that the exotic artifacts were man-made in a furnace, requested
that this strange material be produced within his realm. A glassmaking
facility was obligingly built and operated by some foreigners to the great
delight of the Chinese court. Thus, it was said, was glassmaking introduced
into China.
There are numerous Chinese literary works concerning this event, among which the most commonly quoted version is a historical work of the fifth century, the Pei-shih, in which it is related that, during the reign of Emperor T’ai Wu, traders from the West came to his capital and stated that they could produce stones of any color for the emperor by melting together certain minerals. They were given leave to obtain the minerals from the near-by hills. They did so and were successful in producing glassware even superior to that which had previously arrived from the West.
The story is not without merit, reported the scholar
Herada Yoshito in his study, Ancient Glass in the History of Cultural
Exchange, The tradition has it that certain Western traders boasted
that they could produce liu-li, "glass," in five colors, that
is, they could duplicate five different precious stones by fusing together
locally available minerals, and that, challenged to do so, they proceeded
to perform the process so perfectly that the resultant gems were indeed
of far greater beauty than was the imported variety...
[...End of first page of chapter 8...]
THE SASSANIAN
EXPERIENCE
The Babylonian Connection
The word "Babylon" conjures up an array of rich images. It was in the land of Babylon that cuneiform writing was created and literacy spawned, that then pattern for organized society was set by Hammurabi’s laws, that ziggurats soared toward the clouds, and that pyrotechnology attained a level of proficiency by which the Bronze Age was born an stone could be transformed into glass. It is written that Babel embraced all tongues, and that by their separation nations were forever parted. It is also written that the progenitors of the jews departed from the region of Babylon and returned, not once, but again and again and yet again. Each time they returned, they were instrumental in propelling Babylon and civilization to a new level of intellectual and technical achievement.
The advent of the Sassanian Dynasty (224-226) initiated
a period in which a great surge of intellectual and commercial achievement
took place in Persia. Josephus stated that the Jewish communities of this
ancient land of the Dihtmlora consisted of "countless myriads of which
none can know the number." The sudden influx of refugees from the
aftermath of the Bar Khochba revolt and the subsequent immigration from
Christian lands, in fact, swelled Josephus’s open-ended estimate; it brought
about a doubling of the Jewish Babylonian population from an already substantial
1,000,000 to approach an impressive 2,000,000 persons. They were a literate,
skilled people who formed the urban core of Mesopotamian society. No large
Babylonian city lacked Jewish merchants and artisans, and many of Babylonia’s
great cities, "Nehardea, Nisibis, Mahosa and others, were entirely,...
[...End of first page of chapter 9...]
THE JEWISH
KHAZARS
The Russian Connection
On five historic occasions, Jews became kings or kings became Jews. Five times Jews were integrated into an institution which was in contradiction to their culture and repugnant to their philosophy.
Jews became kings in Egypt after the time of Joseph, and boosted Egyptian culture and technology to new heights of sophistication. They became kings in Israel and Judah, where Jewish rulers reigned for a period longer than twice the age of the United States. Judaism was adopted by the royal house of the Yemenite kingdom of Himyar under Yusuf Asar Dhu Nuwas (ruling ca. 517-525). Eight North African Berber tribes converted to Judaism and fought bravely under their warrior Queen Kahena,
And kings became Jews in Khazaria.
The Khazars were pastoral people who swept in from the vast, windswept savannahs of Asia onto the steppes of present-day southern Russia in the sixth century of the Christian Era. They were an important part of the ongoing westward movement of pastoral Turkic peoples who fanned out across the vast Russian plains: The Magyars moved on up to what is now Finland and ended up in Hungary. The Avars, Sabirs and Bulgars occupied the Danube basin. The Khazars followed the Kok Turks and spread out along the northern flanks of the Caucasus Mountains, skirting the Aral and Chtmlian and Black Seas. The tent-dwelling, horse-riding, Khazar herdsmen absorbed some of the peoples of that hilly area, allied themselves with others, and became transformed into a sedentary nation.
The derivation of the name "Khazar" is a subject
of continued speculation...
[...End of first page of chapter 10...]
THE BYZANTINES
The Balkan Connection
Jews resided in Greece, Macedonia and Illyria in the Hellenistic period, having arrived at least as early as the fourth century BCE, at the time of Alexander the Great’s thrust into the East. Many of these Hellenic Jews came from the already ancient communities of Anatolia and others from Eretz Israel. Direct descendants of these early adventurers into the eastern Dihtmlora are known as the Romaniots, and they are still to be found speaking their own Judeo-Greek dialect in Janina, Trikkala, Chalcis, Volos, and especially in Corfu. The Romaniot community is distinct from the Graeco-Jewish community, descending from another, later influx of Sephardic Jews who speak their own language, Ladino. The early Jewish settlers from the East enjoyed autonomy in communal affairs, including their own system of jurisprudence. Commercial affairs were likewise controlled by an ephorus, a Jewish overseer, who set and controlled market prices, weights and measures. These standards were not only applicable to internal Jewish commerce, but to all trade, and particularly to international commercial intercourse. The Romans, and even the first Christian emperors, had to accept this Jewish quasi-governmental authority because the Jews were key to the conduct of commerce and crafts.
Glassmaking may have been practiced in Corinth on the
Peloponnesian peninsula during the period of Roman hegemony. The circumstances
and time of the introduction of glassmaking into Corinth from the East
are unknown, but glassware-making, if not glassmaking, were certainly
practiced on the Peloponnesian peninsula during the Roman period. It is
clear that the strategically situated city played a central role in the
history of glassmaking...
[...End of first page of chapter 11...]
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