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      Plate 8. A detail from a Chinese almanac (chapter 9).

      London, British Library Or.8210/P.6. British Library Board.

TWO

       A Hellenistic Glass Bowl

      A PHOTOGRAPH DOES NOT DO JUSTICE to the object shown in plate 1b.¹ Although its outside is roughened by weathering, the inside still shows the original rich deep blue of the glass. The dating, its shape, and the groove under the rim suggest it was a late Hellenistic piece, probably made in the Levant. We have to imagine it fresh from the workshop, over two thousand years ago, smooth and unblemished. But it was not admired for long. A century or less after its casting, it was interred, with two similar bowls, in a tomb at Hengzhigang in South China. Here it remained until the tomb was excavated in 1954. Most of its short life was probably spent in the bowels of one or more ships, making their way across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea with a cargo of trade. Was it once one of many—hundreds, possibly thousands—as seen in ships dispatched in the opposite direction from China with their loads of ceramics? Was it made for trade? And why was it placed in the tomb? Before addressing these questions, let us start with how and where it was made.

      The origin of this and the other two bowls is far from certain. In the original Chinese archaeological report they were simply designated as coming from outside China, and such glass of this early period was typically labeled “Roman” by Chinese archaeologists. This is the designation that came with the vessel when it was displayed in Brussels in 2009.² Roman was simply a

       For places mentioned in this chapter see Map 3 in the color maps insert.

      catch-all for anything Western. On the basis of its date, its shape, the groove under its rim, and the weathering, Julian Henderson has suggested that it is late Hellenistic, made in the Levant and similar to many other pieces excavated there. This is plausible, as there is other evidence that late Hellenistic or early Roman bowls were being imported into China.³ However, there was also a glass industry in China at this time, and Brigitte Borell, who has studied it, suggests that the bowl might rather be a product of an industry local to Southwest China and Vietnam.⁴ Working with objects from the past often involves accepting uncertainty, and while new analytical techniques such as isotopic analysis may promise to answer some of our questions they are unlikely to resolve them all.

      THE ORIGINS OF GLASS

      Glass is produced from materials occurring naturally that need only heat to transform them, such as silica, found in sand, and alkaline plant ash, the latter used as a flux to reduce the melting temperature of the silica. Volcanic eruptions, nuclear explosions, asteroids, and even mundane events such as burning haystacks can produce glass if the raw materials are present.⁵ Before humans started producing glass they worked obsidian, volcanic glass naturally created when lava flow—rich in silica—cools rapidly. The presence of iron and aluminum makes the resulting brittle and shiny substance dark. It is found worked by humans from 700,000 BC, fractured like flint to create sharp blades and arrowheads. It continues to be used today by some surgeons for their scalpels, producing a sharper and smoother cutting edge than steel.⁶ Naturally occurring glass was also used for decorations: it has been suggested that the carved scarab found in the breastplate of King Tutankhamun (d. 1323 BC) might be from a piece of glass formed by a meteorite crashing into the Egyptian desert.⁷

      Most manmade glass is made from silica and a flux, but the process means

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