Soon after the
glass-blowing tube became famous, many blown glass products appeared in Rome.
These were small perfume bottles that the rich Romans wore on their belts, and
huge barrels containing more than one hundred liters of wine, and goblets of
the most bizarre shapes and colors: either in the form of grapes, orange, lotus
flower, or in the form of a fantastic animal.
The Romans
quickly realized the benefits of a new way of making glass. Firstly, with the
help of a glass-blowing tube, it is possible to make as many jugs or bowls per
day as they did before in a month. Secondly, the blowing of vessels did not
require such a high qualification as modeling from glass dough. The artist was
easily replaced by an ordinary artisan. Only the manufacture of forms was
required from the artist.
From difficult,
painstaking artistic craft, glassmaking has turned into a profitable industry.
This was a real revolution in the glass business!
Why, then, did
the Phoenicians not have announced their discovery before? Why did they keep
the glass tube secret? It was unprofitable for merchants to report about it.
Its appearance would have lowered the price of glass products even earlier than
it happened. And the inventors themselves at all times were simple toilers,
dependent on nobles and merchants.
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Modern Glassmaker |
Having made even
a significant discovery, such people quietly disappeared from the face of the
earth. Their names remained unknown to anyone. So it was with the inventor of
the glass-blowing tube.
But this does
not stop us from honoring his memory. We respectfully think of a man whose
ingenious invention has been serving humanity for two thousand years.