In an excavation by the Antiquities Authority carried out as part of the project to build the Emek Railway by the Israel Routes Company, the oldest glass furnaces in the country, whose products were marketed all over the Roman Empire, were discovered by chance.
* The furnaces will be copied from their source and displayed to the public at the Carmel Zebulon School within the Zebulon Regional Council.
A global archaeological discovery was uncovered in an excavation by the Antiquities Authority as part of the Israel Routes Company's project to build the Valley Railway. During an excavation conducted at the work site of the railroad construction project, between the Valley Junction and the Yagur Junction, the remains of the ancient furnaces in Israel, which produced raw glass in commercial quantities, were discovered. These furnaces, approximately 1600 years old (from the end of the Roman period), testify that Israel was one of the most important glass production centers of the ancient world.
According to Yael Gorin-Rozen, head of the glass section at the Antiquities Authority, "This is a very important discovery for the history of the glass industry in the Land of Israel and the entire world. The historical evidence from the Roman period says that the Acre Valley area was known for the fine sand found there, which was the most suitable for glass production. Chemical tests carried out on glassware from this period, discovered so far at sites in Europe and shipwrecks in the Mediterranean basin, testified that the origin of the glass is in our region. Now, for the first time, the furnaces where the raw material from which these vessels were produced were created."
In recent weeks, the excavation of the furnaces caused great excitement among glass researchers all over the world, who came to Israel specifically to be impressed by the discovery. According to Prof. Ian Friston from University College London, who specializes in identifying the chemical components of glass, "This is a sensational discovery, which has great significance for the understanding of all systems of international trade in glass in antiquity. This is evidence that the Land of Israel was a production center on a global scale, and hence spread all over the Mediterranean and Europe."
The site of global importance was discovered by chance last summer on the route of the new Valley Railway, by the inspector of the Antiquities Authority, the archaeologist Abd al-Salam Said. During infrastructure works for the construction of the track on the Shimhaifa line to the east, he suddenly saw blocks of glass, a floor and a layer of ash in the section. He stopped the work on the spot, and began an archaeological dig, the important results of which are evident today.
According to Abdel Salam Said, the director of the archaeological dig, "We uncovered fragments of floors, fragments of glazed bricks from the walls and ceiling of the furnaces, and shards of clean raw glass. The excitement that gripped us when we realized the importance of the findings was great."
Nisim Peretz, CEO of Natibi Israel said: "The Emek Railway is an important and strategic transportation project that looks to the future while preserving the past and the heritage of the historical "Valley Railway". This important archaeological discovery reminds us of the Zionist mission we are engaged in - the development of the State of Israel and its transportation infrastructure."
The furnaces that were exposed were built of two chambers: one chamber into which combustion materials were introduced to generate very high heat, and the melting chamber - into which the raw materials of the glass (clean sea sand and sodium salt) were inserted, which were melted together at a temperature of about 1200 degrees, for a week or two. Until the creation of huge blocks of raw glass whose weight reached 10 tons and even more. At the end of the process, the furnaces were cooled, the large blocks of glass that were created were broken into smaller blocks, and sold to workshops for remelting to create tools.
In the early Roman period, the use of glass greatly expanded due to its properties: its transparency, beauty, the delicacy of the vessels and the speed of preparing the vessels using the blowing method, which came into use at the same time and cheapened the production of vessels. From the Roman period onwards, glass was used in almost all households, and it also came into use in public construction: for windows, mosaics and light vessels. As a result, large quantities of raw glass were required and glass began to be produced
in special centers in very large quantities. The factory found in the excavation is an example of one of these early production centers.
In a price list distributed by the Roman emperor Diocletian at the beginning of the 4th century AD, it is written that there are two types of glass: the first is known as Judean glass (from the Land of Israel) and the second - Alexandrian glass (from Alexandria in Egypt). The Judean glass was greenish and cheaper than the Egyptian one.
The question was where were the factories that produced that Judean glass that was known as a brand throughout the Roman Empire and a price was written on stone tablets for the sake of fair trade. The current discovery completes the missing link in the research, and indicates the place of production of the famous Judean glass.
In a few months, the entire public will be able to get an impression of the discovery, which will be on display at the Carmel Zebulon School within the Zebulon Regional Council.
In the past, furnaces for the production of glass were found in Apollonia in Herzliya from the 6th century or the beginning of the 7th century CE, about 200 years later than the current discovery. The largest factory known so far from ancient times was discovered in the neighborhood of Beit Eliezer in Hadera and was dated to the 8th-7th centuries CE, and the latest evidence of glass production in Israel was found in Beit Shaarim (adjacent to Asafana) and was dated to the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th century CE. N.
The furnaces found now are the oldest found so far in the country. Their relatively good state of preservation allows a better understanding of the production process. Now the researchers hope to trace, through the chemical composition of the glass, another way of exporting the glass throughout the Roman Empire.
The raw glass industry in K. Asafana was part of an extensive industrial area where there were textile mills, goths, and a workshop for the production of glassware that was excavated in the 60s by an American expedition.
