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Our knowledge of glass production in ancient Egypt has been well augmented by the publication of
recently excavated materials and glass workshops, but also by more recent materials analysis, and
experiments of modern glass-makers attempting to reconstruct the production process of thin-walled coreformed
glass vessels. From the mounting of a prefabricated core to the final glass product our
understanding of this profession has much improved. The small but well preserved glass collection of the
Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is a valid tool for examining and studying the technology and
production of ancient Egyptian core formed glass vessels. Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) acquired most
of the material from Giovanni Dattari in Cairo in 1909. Previously the glass had received only limited
discussion, suggesting that most of these vessels were produced in the 18th Dynasty in the 15th and 14th
centuries BCE, while others date from the Hellenistic period and later. In an ongoing project we conducted
computed radiography in conjunction with qualitative x-ray fluorescence analysis on a selected group of
vessels to understand further aspects of the ancient production process. This paper will provide an overview
of our recent research and present our data-gathering process and preliminary results. How can the
examinations of core formed glass vessels in the Freer Gallery contribute to our understanding of ancient
glass production and technology? By focusing on new ways of looking at old assumptions using the Freer
Gallery glass collections, we hope to increase understanding of the challenges of the production process of
core-vessel technology as represented by these vessels.
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