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Ancient African glass at the Walters Gallery of Art, Baltimore. The top left corner is Roman Dynasty Egyptian glass. The rest is 18th Dynasty Egyptian glass,
The wine - bearing Amphora, - in an 18th Dynasty glass miniature at the bottom right hand corner, which is universally assumed to be Greek, is probably an African form.
According to the Walters Gallery:
" ... In addition to its use in jewelry, amulets, inlays, and architectural decoration, glass was used for vessels, particularly distinctively shaped perfume bottles. The two most common shapes take their names from Greek pottery: "amphoriskoi" (little amphoras) and "krateriskoi" (little kraters). ..."
Walters Gallery of Art. (Walters Krater.)
I call this photo, taken in February 2014:
Further information on ancient glass can be found at "Ancient Glass: A guide to the Yale Collection." R. A. Grossman (2002) - However, I disagree with this papers assertion that 18th dynasty Egyptian glass is derivative of older Mesopotamian innovations.
My personal intuition is that glass-making technology comes from Africa itself. The Sahara, which is larger than the continental US, is hiding an ancient African civilization.
(March 14, 2014) Krater is a mixing bowl. It was part of the final step in the process of wine production in ancient times. Before consumption the raw wine was mixed with water.
At a more esoteric level, according "Psychology and Alchemy," by C.G. Jung,
" ... Zosimos was a Gnostic who was influenced by Hermes. In his missive to Theosebeia he recommends the "krater" as a vessel of transformation: she should, he says, hasten to the Poimandres in order to be baptized in the krater.
This krater refers to the divine vessel of which Hermes tells Thoth in the treatise entitled [greek words]. After the creation of the world, God filled the vessel with nous (nous = pneuma) and sent it down to earth as a kind of baptismal font. By doing so God gave man, who wished to free himself from his natural imperfect state of [greek word] (or, as we should say insufficient consciousness), an opportunity to dip himself in the nous and thus partake of the higher state of [greek word] , i.e., enlightenment or higher consciousness. ... "
C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (1960) at pg. 299
Also, according to Emma Jung's "The Grail Legend", medieval ideas of the krater and the Holy Grail probably have an African and Arabian source (Sabaean):
" ... In another of his works, Zosimos mentions the krater (mixing bowl) of Poimandres in which he advises his soror mystica to immerse herself. "The krater," says Jung, "is ... a font or piscina, in which the immersion takes place and transformation into a spiritual being is effected. It is the vas Hermetis of later alchemy ... uterus of spiritual renewal or rebirth." In this krater, which is the subject of the books of the Corpus Hermeticum, Henry and Renée Kahane even see the actual source of Wolfram's idea of the Grail. They assume that this book came to Spain via the agency of the Sabaeans and thus to the notice of the mysterious Kyot - Wolfram's source ... "
Emma Jung, The Grail Legend (1960) at pg. 138
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"Islam is the Sabaean Night"
W. Njenga (2005)
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