vase

Between 1200 and 1100 B.C., for reasons we do not fully understand, Bronze Age cultures in and around the eastern Mediterranean collapsed. Industries making luxury goods were among the first to vanish. Few glass objects dating between 1200 and 900 B.C. have been found. The manufacture of glass vessels resumed in the second half of the eighth century in Phoenicia and Assyria, where many glass table wares have been excavated at the sites of palaces. Cast monochrome cups, bowls, and vases were among the earliest Iron Age glass vessels. This vase and the famous Sargon vase in the British Museum belong to the early series of cast and cold-worked forms. The irregularity of the finishing on the Corning example, one of the most elaborate objects of its kind, indicates that it could not have been produced on a lathe - and that it was cut and polished by hand.