glass

Although the glazing of stones such as quarts and steatite, as well as the making of faience, had been known since Predynastic times (c. 5500-3100 BC), glass is extremely rare before c. 1500 BC, and not certainly attested in Egypt before the late Middle Kingdom.

It is possible that the craft of glass-making was first introduced into Egypt following the campaigns of Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC), when captive glass-makers may have been brought to Egypt from Mitanni, where the technology was already available. Glass is certainly one of the materials mentioned in lists of tribute in the Annals of Thutmose III at Karnak, and even by the time of Akhenaten (1352-1336 BC) glass was still of sufficient importance to merit inclusion in diplomatic correspondence. In the Amarna Letters the Hurrian and Akkadian terms ehlipakku and mekku were used, and these loan-words perhaps point to the eastern origins of the earliest glass.