Glass sand

Description

A sand used for making glass that primarily contains quartz. Glass sand may also have a natural mixture of other metallic oxides such as lime (calcium oxide) and an alkali. For example, the sand at Amarna in Egypt contained 19% calcium oxide and was used for making glass in the 14th century BCE. High quality deposits of sand glass are also found in southern Germany, and the U.S. (Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maryland).

Synonyms and Related Terms

sable de verrerie (Fr.)

Authority

• Thomas Gregory, The Condensed Chemical Dictionary, Reinhold Publishing, New York, 3rd ed., 1942

• Jack Odgen, Jewellery of the Ancient World, Rizzoli International Publications Inc., New York City, 1982

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000