"Blowing allowed for previously unparalleled versatility and speed of manufacture."
Rosemarie Trentinella, Metropolitian Museum of Art
It was the Syrians who first learned to blow molten glass through a hollow metal tube and shape it into intricate forms. Although the technique for producing glass had existed for about two and a half millennia, it was only in approximately "100 B.C.E. that the hazardous art of glassblowing—using glass melting at a few thousand degrees Fahrenheit—was mastered.
Glassblowing is the process for forming glass into a desirable shape, and this ability to form iconic, practical, and elegant shapes out of glass has been of incalculable value and practical benefit to society. Glassblowing machines have now largely replaced the Syrian specialists, but the science behind the technique remains the same. Molten glass is first introduced to the end of a hollow tube. A bubble of air is then blown through the tube, and as the bubble passes out of the tube a covering of molten glass forms around the sphere of air. This glass-covered bubble, still attached to the tube, is either placed within a mold of the required form and enlarged through further blowing, or sculpted with tools into the desired shape. The glass is then allowed to cool slowly to complete the process. It is the fact that glass has no set melting or freezing points that makes glassblowing possible; as the temperature rises or falls, the state of the glass gradually changes.
The rise of the Roman Empire at around the same time as the beginnings of glassblowing greatly facilitated the proliferation of the art. By adding manganese oxide to the mix, the Romans also discovered clear glass in around 100 C.E., which was used for architectural purposes.
