The ancient Phoenicians made three types of glass:

(1) transparent colorless glass through which one could see

(2) colored transparent glass. Light could pass through it, but a
person could not see through it well enough to distinguish objects.

(3) opaque glass that was hardly distinguishable from porcelain.

I shall now discuss these kinds of glass and what they were used to
make.

(1) Transparent glass was used in mirrors. Round sheets were cast;
they made decent looking glasses when they were covered at the back
by thin metal sheets. This type of glass was used to make vases,
urns, bottles, and jugs. Many samples have been found in tombs on
Cyprus.

(2) Vessels of various kinds and colors were composed of semi-
transparent glass or translucent glass. They have been found on the
Phoenician coast (for example, where Beirut is today), on Cyprus, at
Camirus on Rhodes, and in other places. These containers include:

Small flasks or bottles that are 3-6 inches long. They were very
likely used for perfumes.

Small jugs (cenochoae) that are 3-5 inches in height.

Amphorae, some of which are pointed at the lower extremity.

These vessels were colored (usually horizontally or longitudinally)
in stripes and bands. The bands often deviated from the straight line
into irregular zig-zags. Sometimes the stripes were deflected into
crescents or other types of curves; one pattern resembles a willow
leaf.
The colors are not too vivid, but they are pleasant and well
contrasted. There are five main colors; they are white, blue, yellow,
green, and a purplish brown. Red is rarely used; it only appears in a
pale pinkish form. Blue is often used and is sometimes the color of
the decorative patterns. It is also frequently the color of the
ground. Sometimes it is in two tints on the same vessel, one for the
groundwork and the other for ornamentation. It is rare that more than
three hues are on the same container. Some samples have four hues on
a single vessel.

(3) Opaque glass had a variety of colors and they came from metallic
oxides. Blue was generally gotten from cobalt, though some
archaeologists think the Phoenicians may have occasionally used
copper.
Copper was definitely a source of the greens. Manganese furnished the
brown, which shades into purple and black. The beautiful milky white
is thought to have come from either the oxide of tin or the phosphate
of chalk. The coloring matter of the patterns does not extend through
the entire thickness of the glass. It is only on the outer surface
and is thus a later addition to the vessel after it is made.

While I was in the Air Force, I did a tour of duty in Turkey that
lasted a year (July of 1981 - July of 1982). In April of 1982 I went
to the Turkish town of Bodrum and saw the Museum of Marine
Antiquities. That museum has many artifacts that archaeologists have
recovered from the sea. I saw some Phoenician jugs and vases on
display in the museum.
Some of my study of Phoenician glassware was done at the University
of Texas at Austin in later years. I took some courses on ancient
Near Eastern archaeology and the study of Phoenician artifacts was
one of the aspects of them.

Neal Robbins