Welcome to the Glass Age

156 samples of outstanding productions; good examples of this are the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (UK) or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (US) (Figure 10.5). Museums of science and technology have sections devoted to the display of scientific glass instruments that can date back to the 17 th century, as the ones hosted by the Museo Galileo in Florence (I), or explaining the glass making process, as the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris (F) or the Deutsches Museum in Münich (D) (Figure 10.6). The ancient history of glass can be traced in archaeological museums. Finds coming from archaeological excavations open a window on the use and trade of glass objects in the past. The Bronze Age glass ingots preserved in the Museum for Underwater Archaeology in Bodrum (TR) are evidence that the trade of glass as a raw material started very early in the history of its production: of Egyptian origin, they were found on a ship that sank off the Turkish coast, possibly on their way to the Mycenean world to be reworked. Figure 10.5. Covered goblet with cut decoration. Clear, colourless glass, blown, cut and wheel-engraved and gilt. Including lid height: 23.50 cm. Silesia or Bohemia, about 1760. Source: Victoria and Albert Museum , accession number 6903&A-1860 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.