03x02 - Ancient Glass

[bunniefuu]

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

- What does it all mean?

This is where the archeology has been found.

Oh hi, how are you?

Oh, look at that.

I need a planter.

♪ From the mountain tops ♪

A shrine to a belly button.

♪ To the ancient rocks ♪

Is a rock a salt?

♪ He digs for clues ♪

♪ In his dusty blues ♪

Look at that.

♪ He's a tall tall man ♪

No one gets into this. - No one.

- Whoa, don't take me too far.

Now that's Naked Archeology.

♪ For his archeology, For his archeology, For his archeology ♪

Once upon a time in a land far, far away,

an incredible miracle happened

that would change the world forever.

(baby cries)

Not that story.

I'm talking about the miracle of glass.

Today, glass is everywhere, but at one point in time,

glass was actually invented.

Kind of like the invention of the wheel.

It was invented once and only once.

Back in ancient times,

glass was more valuable than gold.

- [Child] Must be more than a million dollars.

The common belief is that glass was invented

by the Egyptians some years ago,

perfected by the Romans

and exported to the world by the Phoenicians.

But is this the real story?

I'm not convinced, especially since the biggest piece

of ancient raw glass was found here,

in Northern Israel, .

But the strange thing is that it was discovered in the

middle of an ancient cemetery.

An Acropolis called Beit Shearim.

So I've come here to see if I can shine some light on this

mysterious slab of glass.

Wow.

I don't know how many people get excited by a giant slab of

rock, but it's actually glass.

I'm standing on the biggest piece of glass of ancient times.

It would take the th century to make a bigger slab of

glass for the telescopes to look out into space.

And this is at least years old.

But the question is, what is it doing here?

To answer that, I'm meeting with Revital.

She's the archeological guide here at Beit Shearim.

Okay, Revital.

It looks like rock, but it's not rock. What is it?

- Well, when you first look at it,

obviously you don't think that it's glass,

but it's a leftover of one huge block of glass that in the

fourth century here was a factory of creating glass.

- Revital just told me

that most archeologists believe

that the cave here operated as a factory

for making raw glass

somewhere around the fourth century of the common era.

So this was a giant furnace, right?

I mean, I can see chimney.

- A chimney, yes.

Now it's blocked, but it used to be open to the sky

- For the smoke-- - For the smoke to get out.

- Back then glass making was a secret.

We now know that it was made by mixing sand with an

ingredient called natron,

which is to glass what baking soda is to baking a cake.

By mixing sand and natron

and cooking them in a furnace at

temperatures above degrees Celsius,

glass makers produce slabs like the one at Beit Shearim.

But according to experts,

the people who made this slab also threw plant ash into the

mix, which made the glass opaque instead of translucent.

They abandoned the slab when they realized their mistake.

- And they, we believe that they didn't succeed

to melt this huge stone.

And then this probably is a left over.

- This was like, the Titanic of glass.

- That's right.

- So everyone seems to agree that this failed attempt at

making raw glass was made in the fourth century of the

common era.

But I'm not convinced.

Especially since there's no way to accurately date the slab.

And even though archeologists found artifacts around it

dating to the fourth century,

they also found artifacts from the time of Herod,

years earlier in the first century of the common era.

What doesn't make any sense is that these same experts think

that the glass factory was built in what was already a

cemetery where the greatest rabbis

of the second century were buried.

And the most famous rabbi buried here

was rabbi Judah Ha Nasi, who's best known

for editing the Talmud, the book of rabbinic law.

But really, who'd build a glass factory in the middle of a

sacred burial site?

If I'm going to decode this mystery,

I'm going to have to find out more about ancient glass.

My chest is burning. My nipples are on fire.

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

I'm on a quest to find out what's with the biggest slab of

glass ever found from ancient times.

The theory is that in the fourth century,

the glass makers who made the slab messed up the recipe

and then abandoned it after realizing their mistake.

But I'm not convinced,

not only do the experts have no accurate way

of dating this slab, but they discovered it

in the middle of an ancient cemetery.

Which makes me think it must be something else going on.

To figure out if my instincts are right,

I'm going to where there was the successful glass making

factory back in the first few centuries of the common era.

It's located in Beit Eliezer on the coast of Israel.

And when the archeologists dusted off the ruins,

they found furnaces for melting glass.

This kind of furnace would have been used

to create the slab at Beit Shearim.

So I'm going to Beit Eliezer now to see what I can dig up.

We're on a street in a place called Hadera.

This street is called Glass Street.

Now Glass Street is a kind of nice suburban place.

You see they turned the orchard into nice yuppie houses,

except here, here it is still horses.

Like they're obviously not allowed to build here.

And the fact that they're not allowed

to build here and the fact that this street

is called Glass Street, that's my clue

that this is Beit Eliezer, the place that they found

the biggest glass production center in all of Israel.

The place where they found a biggest concentration of

furnaces in the world.

The place that shipped and supplied glass to the whole

Mediterranean and the place that nobody can see now,

'cause it's underneath our feet.

Even though this is now just an empty field, years ago,

Beit Eliezer was the Silicon Valley of glass production.

One of the archeologists who discovered

the furnaces there is Yael Gorin-Rosen.

She says that the way that the furnaces were constructed and

positioned can explain why Beit Eliezer was the successful

factory and why Beit Shearim was a failure.

So you found glass furnaces.

- All facing the same direction in all of them.

The f*ring chambers in the West

and the melting chamber was in the East.

- So you said, wait a minute.

It must be a reason.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you need wind to ventilate--

- To keep the fire. - To keep the fire.

So they usually wait to the South West winds

during the autumn--

- So autumn is good glass making?

- Yeah, this is the best.

- So it turns out that glass making was a seasonal industry.

And that the strong autumn winds off the Mediterranean

made Beit Eliezer the ideal place for a glass factory.

But according to Gorin-Rosen,

the glass makers at Beit Shearim failed

because their furnace was inside a cave

where the winds wouldn't be powerful enough

to get the fire hot enough to make raw glass.

Now, from your point of view,

Beit Eliezer solves the mystery of Beit Shearim,

but you don't find it odd that they would create a glass

making factory in the middle of a Jewish cemetery.

- No, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all.

- I'm still not buying the official explanation

for Beit Shearim.

There must've been enough wind in the cave

to make the slab that's here.

And even though experts don't find it strange that there's a

glass factory in the middle of a sacred cemetery,

I think there must be a connection.

Before I can say for sure,

I need to keep following the glass trail.

You see making glass was only the first step.

After the raw glass was broken into chunks

to be shipped out to glass makers all over the world,

molded them into objects like bowls and cups.

Then glass technology advanced

and molded glass was replaced by blown glass.

To find out how blown glass was made,

I'm going to the only glass furnace in Israel today.

Maayan and Boris are going to show me

this year old technique.

Naked archeologist is gonna make glass.

To make blown glass, we have to melt recycled bits

of raw glass known as cullets.

The next step is to heat up a rod

until the tip is white hot.

My rod is hot.

I then dip the rod into the melted cullet pieces.

Next I'll have to start blowing on the other end

forcing bubbles of air into the glass.

That will help me give it some shape.

- Try hard.

- Oh, stop.

We have our first bubble, Right there.

- My first bubble!

- Very good!

- Feels great. I blew it.

- Let's reheat it.

- The glory hole.

- Glory hole.

- Keep turning, move the yolk in.

When you come out, you're going to swing it a little bit.

To make it a little longer. We're using gravity again.

- Look at that.

You live a whole life you don't realize

that you've got this talent.

- It's a dance.

- It's like Elvis Presley.

My chest is burning. My nipples are on fire.

This is Naked Archeology. We don't just find glass.

We make glass.

I've just learned the year old technique

for blowing glass that most likely

developed right here in Israel.

You see, the oldest evidence of blown glass from anywhere in

the ancient world was discovered in Jerusalem.

So I'm here to find out if the oldest piece of blown glass

can explain the biggest slab of raw glass ever found.

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

- I'm trying to unravel the mystery of a slab of raw glass

found right in the middle of a sacred cemetery.

Hey, the biggest slab of glass

and the largest glass factory ever

found from ancient times are found right here in Israel.

And now I hear that the oldest piece

of blown glass was also found here in Jerusalem.

This egg shaped glass dates to the time of King Herod.

In the first century of the common era, it was found in the

ruins of a residence destroyed by the Romans.

I'm meeting with Hillel Geva,

an expert on the glass remains found here.

One thing that nobody talks about that was found just a few

meters from here is the earliest blown glass ever found.

- You're absolutely right.

This is one of the most important discoveries

made here in our excavations

and you found here the earliest evidence of glassblowing

that can be dated specifically the time of Herod the Great.

- How do you explain that?

That the earliest glass blowing in the world was found in

Jerusalem, not in Rome, not in Alexandria, why Jerusalem?

We found that many, many fragments of glass vessels

connect to the same idea of keeping the purity

with daily life in Jerusalem.

That's the only way to explain it.

So maybe there was an interest.

They had a vested interest to experiment with glass.

They maintain the ritual purity, correct?

- That's right.

- Hillel Geva just told me that the reason

Jews would have had an interest in glass

has everything to do with ritual purity.

You see in Jewish law,

certain vessels can become unkosher because they can absorb

food or liquid that you put into them.

But glass doesn't absorb anything that's put into it.

So under Jewish law, it always stays kosher.

The idea that glass was invented isn't Israel is new.

In fact, Roman historian Pliny the elder said

that glass was invented at a specific location in Israel.

So that's where I'm headed now.

This is Naomine river, but in ancient times,

the Romans called it the Bellis river.

You don't see any mention of glass, do you?

But Pliny the Elder, not to be confused

with Pliny the younger, and Tacitus

both said that glass originated right here

at the mouth of the Bellis river.

They said that sailors put in from the Mediterranean and it

started a bonfire on the beach so they can cook dinner.

And then they invented glass.

'Cause soda and sand mixed together,

the fire from the heat, and suddenly they saw this

translucent liquid.

Do you believe that?

I don't believe that.

I don't believe they invented fish-n-chips,

nevermind glass.

But why do I tell you the story?

I tell you the story because it shows that the Romans

believed that glass originated in Israel.

The connection Between glass and Israel is also documented

by the late glass historian, Samuel Kurinsky.

Even though most experts think that glass originated in

Egypt, about years ago,

Kurinsky said that glass was invented , years ago

in the ancient city of Ur, present day Iraq.

According to Kurinsky, there's a parallel

between the history of glass and the Bible.

After all, Ur is where the biblical Abraham came from.

Abraham leaves Ur, goes to Jerusalem

and then his descendants move on to Egypt.

And then back to Israel before they spread out across the

Mediterranean to the rest of their own world.

And if we follow the glass trail,

it matches the wanderings of Abraham's descendants.

In other words, everywhere the Jews go,

glass making seems to miraculously appear.

The irony is the Jews get credit for

the bagel and they didn't invent the bagel.

And they don't get credit for the glass blowing.

And I think they did invent the glass blowing.

- Okay. Okay with me. (laughs)

The connection between glass making

and ritual purity may hold the answer

to the mystery at Beit Shearim.

If the glass preceeded the cemetery,

could a glass slab be considered so pure

that a bunch of rabbis would want to be buried around it?

To find out, I'm taking a look at the purest glass

of the ancient world.

And back in the first century,

that was the glass used Herod's temple.

And the top glass maker of the time

who would have made glass

for the temple was named Ennion.

He was a Jewish glass maker who also made a habit of signing

his work as he did on this blue jug.

So to find out about his work, I'm going to London,

England to see Shlomo Messiah.

He has the largest collection of Ennion glass in the world.

This is exciting.

Shlomo Messiah's London home.

I've been to his Israeli home many times, never here.

And this is where the real treasure is.

Hello.

- Hi, how are you? It's good to see you.

- We call it, "Jerusalem of London".

- Jerusalem of London I'll say, look at this.

This coffee table has more stuff than most museums.

You gotta understand any museum in the world would be happy

to have one broken piece of this, right?

Now you've got one, two, three, four,

five, six, seven, eight, nine anions.

Okay. That's pretty amazing.

You have more anion than anybody else has.

- I like them.

(laughing)

- I like them, I like them.

It costs more than $, today to buy one, right?

- I give a million. - A million?

- Yeah. - You paid a million?

- I pay, I paid a million. - He paid a million.

You paid a million for what?

- For one fantastic piece.

- Oh my, see, this is what the glass really looks like.

And here's his signature.

Why is this so famous?

Because you look at a lot of glass and you get to the point

where you can recognize the form,

the relationship between handles and size,

the aesthetics, right?

Just like you can recognize a Rembrandt.

Here, look at this one. look at this bluish color.

It's unbelievable.

This man who made this glass, Hananiah in Hebrew,

Ennion, in Greek, when it says in the gospels

that Jesus went to the temple,

this Hananiah was making glass vessels

for the temple at the same time,

'cause ordinary people would not be able to afford this.

So this was used in ritual.

It was used in places like the Jerusalem temple.

You had to be a King, a high priest,

to be able to order something like this.

Glass of the purest kind

would have been made for the temple.

Reinforcing the idea that there was a deep connection

between Judaism and glass making.

But then, after the temple was destroyed

by the Romans in the year CE,

Jewish glass began to spread out to the rest of the world,

reinforcing Samuel Kurinsky's theory

that the history of glass is synonymous

with the history of the Jewish people.

Which makes me think that maybe the Bible has the answer to

the mystery of the glass slab at Beit Shearim.

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

I'm trying to solve the mystery surrounding the biggest slab

of glass ever found from ancient times.

So far, I've uncovered a strong connection

between Judaism and glass making,

which makes me wonder if there might be clues in the Bible

that can explain what the slab

of Beit Shearim is all about.

Okay, I'm in a coffee place in Jerusalem.

A coffee place in Jerusalem.

And that's where I'm trying to figure out one of the

mysteries of the Bible.

I've got here, the Bible, and I've got it in the Hebrew

original because translations are not very good.

And there's a very interesting thing here.

When it talks about Solomon building his temple,

it's in first Kings and it gives

exact dimensions of this temple.

And then it was replaced by the second temple and was

renovated by Aaron.

That's gonna be very important for us.

And it says that Solomon made for the temple transparent

windows of one piece.

Do you know how big a furnace

you need to make these giant windows?

And if someone was to renovate the temple,

he would have to replace these windows.

And one last thing, if you were to make a mistake, right?

If you didn't get it perfectly transparent,

you'd abandon that window,

but that window would become very, very important

because the intent was that it should be part

of the house of God.

The idea that the slab of glass was a failed attempt to make

a window for Herod's renovation of the temple,

at least explains why one of the top rabbis of all time

would want to be buried near it.

Especially since after the destruction of the Holy temple,

all Jews were forbidden by Rome

from being buried in Jerusalem.

But to see if my theory holds any water

I'm meeting with

Joe Good and Nolan Armstrong

under the Western wall in Jerusalem,

where they're researching what the temple looked like,

based on both archeology and the Bible.

So you've thought about these windows.

- Absolutely. We've drawn them.

- Okay. So here's the scoop.

Nobody goes to Beit Shearim to actually look at glass,

they go to look to the tombs. - Tombs, yeah.

- But in that cave, it is the biggest slab of glass

that has ever been found anywhere.

It would take something I think was the Hubble telescope

before anybody would make a one piece of glass--

- That size, - That size.

This piece of glass has thousands of years

ahead of its time.

- That would be the first indicator to me that it would be

associated with the temple.

Because I believe that the technology that they had

to build the temple was so far beyond the rest of the world.

- So it's sitting there abandoned,

and suddenly, who wants to be buried there?

Judah Ha Nasi. - Ha Nasi.

- Right? The redactor of the mission.

- He dies in Sepphoris. - Uh huh.

He arranges ahead of time to be buried in Beit Shearim.

Why?

Because anything associated with the temple is the next best

thing to the temple.

- Well, yeah, it's association with the temple.

It's Holy, you just can't dispose of it.

- You can't treat it like garbage.

- That's right.

- They can't destroy them.

They have to give them a ritual burial.

That would be my guess as to why this glass was preserved.

- My journey began with a quest

to figure out what the biggest slab of glass

ever found from ancient times is doing in the

middle of a sacred burial site.

The accepted theory that it's just a failed attempt at

making raw glass, has too many holes in it.

After tracing glass, through Jewish ritual life and history.

After weighing all the facts,

I'm convinced that the slab at Beit Shearim

was intended for a higher purpose.

And the reason for hundreds of years, people came here,

holy people from around the world to be buried here,

was not just to be close to each other,

to be close to a relic of the temple.

This is the only explanation.

Hiding in plain sight is the last remaining window

of the Holy temple in Jerusalem.

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ From a tall, tall land ♪

♪ He makes no apologies ♪

♪ For his archeology ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ From a tall, tall land ♪

♪ He makes no apologies ♪

♪ For his archeology ♪