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Dig Deeper - Excavations at Jalame

Wood Fired Glass Furnaces

A reproduction of an ancient wood-fired glass furnace built by the Corning Museum of Glass.

The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.

A glassblower trails a thread of hot glass around their base form, replicating an ancient “zig-zag” pattern. A wooden board is wrapped around the glassmaker’s leg, replacing the contemporary gaffer’s bench.

The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.

A glassblower reheats their starter bubble in the chamber of a reproduction ancient wood-fired glass furnace.

The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.

In preparation for the exhibition and using available archaeological evidence, the museum has built a wood-fired glassblowing furnace from daub. This combination of refired clay and straw insulates well and does not require any supplemental heat source or bellows to achieve temperatures hot enough to blow glass. The Museum’s team of expert glassblowers has been studying objects made at Jalame and experimenting with recreating them without the benefit of modern tools, like the glassblower’s bench and shears. A series of videos filmed at the wood-fired furnace will be available in the galleries, showing processes such as bringing the furnace up to temperatures necessary to blow glass and techniques and tools used by ancient glass blowers. The working furnace itself will be featured in a series of weekly demonstrations for Museum visitors during summer 2023.