On Wednesday, Nov. 5, University of Massachusetts classics lecturer Joseph Wilson took the students in his course, Technology in the Ancient World, to the glassblowing laboratory of Sally Prasch. The laboratory, located in the Lederle Graduate Research Center, served as a place for students to observe how utensils, equipment and ornaments could be made with glassblowing technology.
Prasch, a master glassblower, has been working with glass for various purposes over the years, including creating quartz for AT&T semiconductors and teaching glass properties to chemistry and physics students at UMass. She used her knowledge in her laboratory demonstration, using a burner and tongs to fuse two pieces of glass and create a new glass structure.
Prasch said that the production of glass, as well as experiments surrounding the use of glass, traced back to ancient Egyptian civilization and the Roman Empire. She connected past glass-based inventions to modern-day appliances built on glass, such as the mobile phone and the magnifying glass.
Prasch traced the telescope, an invention relevant to understanding the physical features of the world, to the relevance of glass. “[With] the telescope, we wouldn’t see space … we wouldn’t see … anything in the universe,” Prasch said.
According to Wilson, one objective of the visit to Prasch’s laboratory was to highlight the significance of glassblowing as a hands-on activity that utilizes both creative thinking and physical dexterity.
“The creative aspect of handmade glass is still essential for certain types of scientific instruments and applications today,” Wilson said.
Wilson has said that the art of glassblowing still holds significance in the present day because the principles behind its creation have not changed. Although the methods used to craft glass now are not the same as they were in ancient times, Wilson says the raw materials and the end results of glass production are not different.
“The kind of advancements in the mass production of glass that took place in the Roman Empire around the first century and later, where mass production of glass for an international market became the norm in this period, [shows] that the glass we use today is still substantially similar in its composition,” Wilson said. “The understanding of the historical significance is relevant to the present.”
That, to Wilson, is also the significance of this class.
While Wilson describes how people used tools and principles in past ages, he explains their functions in ways that make it relevant to how people use their own tools today.
“My purpose is to … remind the students of the value of both creativity and expertise in these kinds of artisanal pursuits in the historical record,” Wilson said, connecting the ancient tools that students learned about to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the present day.
Wilson said that while modern technology can streamline human-led processes by making tasks more efficient and less menial, it does hamper the thinking processes that go into these tasks. Ancient tools, both in their creation and their usage, could fill in those gaps and encourage people’s critical thinking.
“By reminding people about the essential role of creativity … within ancient technological practices … it helps the students to think critically about how technologies are adopted and used in the service of human creativity,” Wilson said.
Besides glassblowing, Wilson has also demonstrated trades such as metal casting and flintknapping – sculpting stone tools by chipping off excess with another “hammer” stone. Wilson said that in an age where technology can be used to perform tasks within seconds, it was worth learning about processes that actively involve the human brain in making things that people could work with.
Wilson’s teaching assistant is senior BDIC major Jesse Blumenthal, who took the course previously. Blumenthal said he has seen the course evolve due to the discovery of new ancient history and archaeologic information.
“There was a new discovery of intentional alloying of arsenic with copper in the [old Egyptian] kingdom that was recent,” Blumenthal said. There had been evidence that speiss, which contains both arsenic and iron, had been actively “alloyed” – combined, to form an evolved substance – with copper. The intent behind the alloying was to refine the copper so it could be applied more widely. The course adapted to make it relevant to the present day.
Blumenthal himself is a master blacksmith and has conducted demonstrations of iron, copper and bronze casting for the class. According to Wilson, Blumenthal has crafted various replicas of ancient technological items, including a bronze spearpoint, using various places on campus such as the UMass Makerspace.
Wilson said Blumenthal’s work has opened avenues for alternative ways of replicating ancient tools and raising their awareness. As a result, the class has been able to explore various outlets on campus where these tools could be crafted and develop their knowledge of the resources that go into creating them.
“Because of [Blumenthal’s] use of the metallurgical facilities … we were able to arrange class visits to see demonstrations of ancient metalworking technology where we used modern technologies like 3D printing to make models of ancient technologies,” Wilson said. “And then we were able to create replicas of those models of ancient technologies using the ancient metallurgical techniques.”
While it cannot perform some tasks that require human dexterity, Blumenthal said AI can fulfill various tasks in the present, making it as functional now as ancient tools were in the past.
“The advent of AI is as big a technological shift as that of bronze to iron,” Blumenthal said. “There’s still a place for functional tools. You can’t use an AI to carve a bowl of wood, but you can, of course, use an AI to answer your messages.”
Despite this, Blumenthal said physical tools are still important parts of performing tasks that can be done using AI. “Even in today’s age, where … there’s adaptation of technology to do everyday tasks, like plot out your calendar [and] answer your phone calls …, we still need some physical tools to do so,” Blumenthal said.
Wilson said people who lived in ancient civilizations differed slightly in their technical principles compared to people in the present day. Though some might dismiss ancient people and their principles as “primitive,” Wilson argued their knowledge and ability to apply skills not widely practiced in a contemporary setting made them even more advanced than people in the present day.
“I appreciate collaborating with people around the university who can demonstrate these skills successfully,” Wilson said. “And it gives students an appreciation for just how much practice is required to do things like this well.”
Wilson said the class’s development of combining physical skills and critical thinking allows students to develop their knowledge holistically, which makes the class worth taking. He hopes to increase the number of technical experts so his class can turn to more resources in the future.
“I feel that [knowledge in technical skills] is crucial in this period when … creativity may be devalued by things like artificial intelligence coming to the fore, … that amplifies and distorts existing expertise rather than providing new tangible products,” Wilson said. “So I think that any student who needs to learn to think critically about technology would benefit from gaining hands-on experience with these ancient artisanal tasks.”
Kalana Amarasekara can be reached at [email protected].
