Whether it be glass knives or arrowheads used in the Bronze Age or jewellery and tableware in late Bronze Age or inexpensive windowpanes and pottery in the Iron Age or exotic stained glass artwork used in Churches through the Middle Ages or transparent solar panels in the Modern times, breakthrough glass manufacturing technologies continue to ‘transform’ and ‘mould’ human civilisation,
“Why pay hefty electric bill every month? Generate your own electricity at home.”
Don’t be surprised if you happen to see this ad coming up shortly in any newspaper or digital media. Because harvesting solar energy directly from transparent glass windows, rooftops, building walls, smartphones, car roofs… is going to be soon possible. Heliatek GmbH, a German company, has developed partially transparent solar panels which absorbs 60% of the sunlight it receives, and converts it into electricity. The company claims that these panels achieve 7.2% energy efficiency as compared to 12% efficiency delivered by most conventional solar photovoltaic panels. As researchers continue to look for solutions to increase ‘energy efficiency’ and ‘transparency’ of these glass panels, what’s really exciting is the fact that transparent solar panels could soon be mass produced at the cost of regular glass sheets.
If ever we begin to harness this ‘green energy’ on a large scale in the near future, it wouldn’t be the first time that the wonder substance ‘glass’ would have helped usher in a new revolutionary transformation. Looking back into history, one realises that centuries-after-centuries if there was one substance on earth that has ‘transformed’ and ‘moulded’ the growth and advancement of human civilisation, it was ‘glass’. Ever since mankind accidentally discovered glass some 3600 years ago in Mesopotamia (i.e. coastal north Syria) in the form of glass beads (i.e. a slag by-product during metal work), it has continued to amaze us all through its sheer ‘adaptability’ and ‘versatility’.
In the Bronze Age…
Since 30th century BC, the Egyptians obsession for glass led to some rapid growth in glassmaking technology. Coloured glass had grown into a craze and prized possession of the elite class were glass vessels, coloured and shaped glass items, hardglass carvings, ubiquitous beads, etc. This civilisation perfected the art of extracting glass from the ashes (i.e. soda ash) of many seashore plants. Several communities in Western Asia closely guarded their unique manufacturing techniques. Commonly used for production of knives, arrowheads, jewellery and money, by the 15th century BC, glass making grew into being an established industry across Western Asia and Egypt.
In the late Bronze Age…
It was around the 9th century (late Bronze Age), the technique of making colourless glass was discovered and craftsmen started using glass to make artistic tableware. By the 6th century the glass making industry started use of moulds for inlays to shape glass and the first glass making ‘manual’ known to mankind dates back to 650 BC.
In the Iron Age…
Somewhere in the 4th – 5th century BC, a Roman merchant happened to rediscover a translucent liquid oozing out of the sand while preparing meals on the beach. This led to the discovery of a new manufacturing technique of producing glass using white silica sand. This new source of raw material led to development of the revolutionary ‘glass blowing’ manufacturing technique during the first century BC. Glass vessels were now inexpensive compared to pottery vessels, and it is said that glass became the Roman plastic being used by masses.
In the Classic Middle Age…
It was the Romans (around 100AD) who began to use glass for architectural purpose, and cast glass windows of poor opacity appeared in the most important buildings in Rome. Over the next 1000 years, glass making flourished in the Roman Empire and spread from Italy to all countries across Europe. Throughout Europe the churches and cathedral saw the fine art of making stained glass achieve miraculous height till about 14th Century. The first glass factory in the United States was built in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608.
India was also at the forefront of the glass technology in South Asia since 16th Century. Indian artisans who were masters in glass moulding, decorating and colouring techniques, benefited tremendously from the new manufacturing techniques developed in Western Asia and Europe owing to its Greco-Roman connect.
-Dr Siddhivinayak Barve
Editor, ScienceNow Digital
