Early glass

Glass before the New Kingdom (before 1550 BC)

There are some apparently glass objects found in Egypt in contexts earlier than the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC). Most such early glass objects are beads; the identification of these pieces must be treated with some caution (Nicholson/Henderson 2000 :195). For a number of early examples, some scholars prefer the term glassy faience. It is important to note, with Lilyquist, that no core-moulded glass vessels are known in Egypt before the mid Eighteenth Dynasty. All earlier glass objects are moulded paste (beads, scarabs, inlay elements).

A Naqada Period glass object ?

Beck 1934 (n. 9) published this object from Naqada as an example of early glass. The precise context of the tomb is not recorded, but all surviving parallels indicate that the object is much later in date. It may be a deformed blue glass djed-pillar amulet of a type known from the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) and later.

First Intermediate Period

UC from Qau tomb 1602	UC from Badari tomb 4997

There are at least two late Middle Kingdom glass scarabs, Martin 1971: nos. 441 and 1198.