The largest
number of glass or glass-trimmed jewelry has been preserved in China from the
Tang era (618-907). And it is not surprising: after all, this era is
characterized by prosperity and abundance.
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| Ancient Jewelry |
According to
some researchers (for example, A. Schaefer), it is to refer to opaque colored
(in modern terminology - "jewelry") glass, imitating lapis lazuli,
turquoise and beryl, the term lyu-li
was used. In Tang time, personal glass items (pendants, bracelets) made of such
glass were valued on a par with a stone. They are presented, for example, in
Sёsoin, a repository of a Buddhist temple in the old Japanese capital, Nara. A
disk made of glass that imitates jade, and small glass things similar to
cornelian ones from the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art are currently
dated back to the 7th – 10th centuries.
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| Modern Chinese Glass Beads |
The early Chinese glass contains relatively much not only lead but also barium - metals,
apparently, found in raw materials. The concentration of lead in it (5% or
more) provided the best fusion of ingredients and good qualities of the
finished product - shine and compliance in the treatment (carving) but made the
glass brittle. Barium almost disappeared from the glass after the Tang era
(618-907). But the lead content, while shrinking in glass created in the Yuan
(1271–1368) and Ming (1368–1644) eras, nevertheless persisted until the 17th
century, contrary to the conviction in the past that, starting from
approximately Tang time, lead glass was gradually completely replaced by
sodium.
