glass
Although the glazing of stones such as quarts and steatite, as well as
the making of faience, had been known since Predynastic times (c. 5500-3100
BC), glass is extremely rare before c. 1500 BC, and not certainly attested
in Egypt before the late Middle Kingdom.
It is possible that the craft of glass-making was first introduced into
Egypt following the campaigns of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC), when captive
glass-makers may have been brought to Egypt from Mitanni, where the technology
was already available. Glass is certainly one of the materials mentioned in
lists of tribute in the Annals of Thutmose III at Karnak, and even by
the time of Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC) glass was still of sufficient importance
to merit inclusion in diplomatic correspondence. In the Amarna Letters the
Hurrian and Akkadian terms ehlipakku and mekku were used, and these
loan-words perhaps point to the eastern origins of the earliest glass. (Ian
Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt [New York:
Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995], 122)
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