People have been making use of glass since the beginning of mankind. Glass production was first thought to have begun in Mesopotamia, in the 3rd Millennium BC, when potters fused sand and minerals while firing their clay into grass. The first blowpipe was invented nearly a thousand years later, and with it the art of glassblowing.

The Romans developed glassware to a high degree of sophistication, but the art of glass-making declined with t