D E S E RT
GLASS
TRACING THE ORIGIN OF EGYPTIAN
Dr. R.K. Nimai SinghIn 1922, when Howard Carter began
searching through King Tutankhamun’s
treasure chests, he found a decorative
breastplate depicting the Sun God ‘Ra’.
Housed in the centre of this armour
sits a chartreuse scarab; a beetle symbol
that Egyptians held sacred. The scarab
was believed to be carved from either
a semi-precious or precious stones,
most probably chalcedony. However,
when Italian mineralogist Vincenzo
de Michele examined it in 1996, he
suspected the scarab to be made from
glass and after seeking permission from
the Egyptian Department of Antiquities
measured the refractive index of the
material in 1998 and found that his
suspicion to be true.
Since King Tut reigned during
1341-1323 BCE and though glass
was invented much earlier but the
technology was able to produce very
small items only and large pieces came
about only in the first century BC, the
source has to be natural. There was
Egyptian desert glass which was very
rare and traded. Such glass also known
as Libyan Desert glass is not like the
glasses found in other areas where there
are either meteor impacts or volcanic
eruptions. The Egyptian Desert glass
are most spectacular and based on the
material properties, it is classed as glass,
though the ancient Egyptians regard
glass and stones as closely linked and in
the hieroglyphic texts of Tut’s period,it means “stone that pours”.
During those times it was
seen as a semi-precious
stone like amethyst, lapis
lazuli or quartz.Several theories have
been propounded for the
formation of the Egyptian
Desert glass which varies
from cloudy dark brown to
stunningly luminous yellow.
After studying the zircon
content, it was confirmed
that it was formed some 20
million years ago. Some say that
it was a result of a meteor impact
while some say that that