Some objects in the Freer|Sackler are quite small yet provide substantial information about their place of manufacture, ultimate destination, and function. This fragment of an ancient glass beaker is a little more than an inch wide and in remarkably good condition considering it is about 3,400 years old. It is an example of one of the most extraordinary glass vessels produced during the Late Bronze Age in the ancient Near East, specifically in places such as Tell Braq in northern Syria, Tell er Rimah in northern Iraq, and Hasanlu in Iran. The beaker fragment is composed of tiny colored glass canes that form a pattern of lozenge shapes in four colors: red, white, blue, and turquoise. Of surviving examples, this one is probably in the best condition.
The fragment becomes more interesting when one discovers that Charles Lang Freer acquired it along with 1,387 mostly glass objects from the famous antiquities dealer Giovanni Dattari in Cairo, Egypt, during the summer of 1909. This collection included dozens of glass objects clearly dated to the later Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, more specifically to the reigns of Amenhotep II (r. 1427β1400 BCE) through Tutankhamun (r. 1334β1325 BCE).
In order to understand how such a vessel could end up in Egypt, one has to consider its potential function as a political gift between rulers of the ancient Near East and those of Egypt. According to information provided by some remarkable clay tablets, written in cuneiform in an international dialect of Akkadian and found in a diplomatic archive at Tell el Amarna, Egypt was held in high regard by its neighbors. These included both small city-states and larger empires such as the Hittites, Mittanians, and Assyrians. Rulers writing to the pharaoh would address him as “brother” to indicate an equal status. Important and beautiful royal gifts of the highest quality would have been exchanged.
Though Egypt could send beautiful vessels and objects made of gold, ivory, or painted pottery, its developing industry of glass vessels could not yet meet the standards of its Near Eastern compatriots. These craftsmen were so advanced in the production of glass objects that they kept cuneiform documents with recipes for making different kinds. And though Egyptian glassmakers would produce some mosaic glass dishes, they could never produce a beaker such as this oneβa royal gift of such high technical skill as to equal any Egyptian gift, even of vessels of gold.
The beaker likely ended up either in a royal tomb or in the ruins of a palace of an Eighteenth Dynasty ruler, such as Malqata at Thebes or Tell el Amarna in Middle Egypt. This object, with its geometric patterning, would have been just as attractive to a pharaoh as were Egyptian objects, with their exotic designs, to the rulers of the ancient Near East.
