Square Storage Bottle CMOG 70.1.38

In this large, thick-walled, square storage jar, the use of a full-size blowing mold is obvious: when molten glass is inflated, the resulting bubble is always spherical. The video shows a graphite mold; in antiquity, such a vessel would probably have been made of stone or terracotta. In Jerusalem, sometime about 40 B.C., it was discovered that molten glass could be inflated. To make this phenomenon useful and practical, manufacturing processes had to be invented. This occurred during a rapid expansion of the Roman Empire that eventually included the entire Mediterranean Basin and extended to the far eastern coast: present-day Israel. Through an extensive trade of goods and the widespread movement of people and know-how, glassblowing found its way to the Italian peninsula. It took root and developed quickly. Glassblowing spread to become—then, as now—the predominant method of making glass vessels. Learn more at https://romanglassblowing.cmog.org. The resource is a follow-up to Gudenrath's popular Techniques of Renaissance Venetian Glassworking (https://renvenetian.cmog.org) and Technique of Renaissance Venetian-Style Glassworking (https://renvenetianstyle.cmog.org/)