The Glass Pavillion Highlights

The Glass Pavilion at MUZA houses one of the rarest and most comprehensive collections of ancient glass in Israel and worldwide. The permanent exhibition in the pavilion surveys 3,000 years of glass creation and displays items of exceptional historical value and rare aesthetic quality in this fascinating field of creation.

These are the exhibits not to be missed during your visit to the pavilion:

Funerary heart amulet

14th century BCE (Late Bronze Age)
Permanent display, “Pre-Blown Glass” | Showcase 1

For the ancient Egyptians, the heart (ib), rather than the brain, was considered the seat of one’s soul – containing thoughts, memories, and emotions. Heart amulets, like the one in the MUZA collection, were made from precious materials such as gold, silver, alabaster, carnelian, jasper, lapis lazuli, or glass, and were sewn onto mummy wrappings to ensure that the deceased retained their heart for the afterlife. The heart’s pivotal role in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony (the final judgment) reinforced the amulets’ importance in ensuring the deceased’s safe passage to the afterlife.

The unique example in the MUZA collection features the Bennu bird, a symbol of rebirth and regeneration in Egyptian mythology. Believed to have risen from the primordial waters at the beginning of time, the Bennu bird was associated with the Nile. In another myth, it emerged from the flames atop the sacred tree in Heliopolis, the city of the sun god Ra, it was linked to the sun’s daily rising and to the concept of eternal return. Later, it became associated with the Greek phoenix and its perpetual rebirth from its own ashes.

Phoenician Scarab Seal

6th-7th centuries BCE (Iron II Age)
Permanent display, “Pre-Blown Glass” | showcase 37

This unique scaraboid seal is cast in glass, with engraved anatomical details. The seal features a palm tree flanked by two rampant goats or ibexes whose heads are turned backwards – an enduring motif symbolizing fertility and regeneration in the ancient Near East since the third millennium BCE. This design became particularly popular during the first millennium BCE among the Arameans, Phoenicians, and Hebrews.

In Near Eastern mythology, the palm tree represents the Tree of Life. The life-giving tree was believed to possess protective, prophylactic properties, and seals bearing this motif were worn as amulets to ward off illness and safeguard the health of their owners. The shape and symbolic significance of the palm tree are thought to have been perpetuated in the design of the Temple Menorah – the seven-branched candelabrum that has become a symbol of Judaism.

This unique seal was the inspiration for the original emblem of the museum (formerly Haaretz Museum), designed in 1958 by Franz Kraus. This image was replaced in 2015 as part of the museum’s rebranding process.

Luxury Hellenistic Bowl

1st-2nd centuries BCE (Hellenistic Period)
Permanent display, “Pre-Blown Glass” | showcase 45

This unique and remarkably large vessel belongs to a small group of stem-footed, cast-glass Hellenistic bowls, outstanding in terms of their impressive size and elegant proportions. The bowl and its foot were cast separately, then joined together at a relatively low temperature. It was then decorated with delicate wheel-cut grooves on the rim, body, and junction of the bowl and foot.

Handless bowls or kraters with outsplayed rims such as this one represent an impressive technological achievement predating the invention of glass-blowing, and were luxury items that only the elite could afford. They were often decorated with engraved strips of grooves inspired by ceramic or silver pieces of the same period. Most of these artifacts were found in southeast Italy, yet they were probably produced in Alexandria or in one of the Hellenistic glassmaking centers in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Rare Shell-Shaped Glass Vessel

1st century CE (Early Roman period)
Permanent display, “Pre-Blown Glass” | showcase 36

This gorgeous, fully intact vessel is a splendid example of Early Roman luxury glassware whose designs were inspired by expensive silverware.

For nearly a century after the invention of glass-blowing, most glass vessels were still made by using the mold-casting technique. In fact, this method was never abandoned, continuing to serve glassmakers throughout the Roman Empire alongside the new and revolutionary technique of glass-blowing.

Ennion’s Blue Jug

First half of the 1st century CE (Early Roman period)
Permanent display, “Blown Glass” | showcase 44

This nearly intact vessel, known as “Ennion’s Blue Jug,” is regarded as a pinnacle of Roman glassmaking. Beyond its perfect proportions, precision of execution and meticulous attention to detail, its importance also lies in the fact that it bears the name of its maker – Ennion. In the first century CE, only a select group of glass artists – Aristeas, Neikias, Meges, Jason, and Artas – signed their works, but Ennion was undoubtedly the most gifted and the most prolific among them. He is believed to have come from the Phoenician city of Sidon, which was famous for its glassmaking industry. Ennion’s glass vessels became synonymous with excellence, and were sought after throughout the Roman world.

In that period mold-blowing was still a relatively new technique, primarily used for producing luxury glassware as an alternative to costly silver and gold vessels. Ennion’s Blue Jug was created through an elaborate process involving separate molds for the vessel’s body, neck, and base, with the handle attached after the different parts were joined together. Its ovoid body bears three broad decorative friezes, and Ennion’s name appears in an inscription within a so-called tabula ansata (Latin, tablet with dovetail handles) on the central frieze, reading “ENNIΩN EΠOIEI” (Greek, Ennion made [it]).

The widespread distribution of glass vessels bearing Ennion’s name across the Eastern Mediterranean, including the regions of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Cyprus, suggests that he was based in one of Phoenicia’s glassmaking centers. However, the discovery of significant numbers of his glass pieces in Dalmatia (present-day Croatia), as far as the Black Sea littoral, and especially in the Adria and Aquileia regions of northern Italy, has led scholars to speculate that Ennion moved at some point from the eastern provinces to the center of the Empire.

Rare Roman Drinking Horn (rhyton)

First century CE (Early Roman period)
Permanent display, “Blown Glass” | showcase 43

A rare and perfectly preserved ceremonial drinking vessel that belongs to a small group of blown-glass drinking horns from the early Roman period. The horn-shaped body rests on a base. The liquid was designed to flow in through the large opening at the top, and to flow out through the narrow spout at the bottom, curved and fashioned to resemble a cornuted animal.

Drinking horns had a cultic function as vessels for pouring libations, but they were also used as ornate drinking vessels at festive banquets. In ancient art, mortal revelers as well as gods such as Dionysus and the Lares (Roman domestic deities) are depicted holding similar drinking horns. Horn-shaped vessels have a long history in the Middle East, particularly in Persia, where they were popular during the second half of the first millennium BCE. Many specimens made of silver, gold, ivory, ceramics and even a unique rhyton made of cast glass, have been found there. Drinking horns made of blown glass, similar to the Museum’s rhyton, have been found so far in North Africa, Italy, the Greek islands, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and further east, in Afghanistan.

Opus sectile glass tile from the villa of Roman Emperor Lucius Verus

Mid 2nd century CE (Roman period)
Permanent display | showcase 35

During the Roman period, opus sectile (Latin, “cut work”) was a popular decorative technique that involved cutting colorful marble or glass into geometric patterns, which were fitted together to adorn the floors, walls, ceilings, and furnishings of the wealthy. The tile in the museum collection is part of a large composition assembled from sections of preformed canes and bars of mosaic and monochrome glass, which decorated Lucius Verus’ villa – co-emperor alongside his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius (161–169 CE), outside Rome. Removed in the 19th century, these pieces passed through antique dealers to various collections throughout the world, with this particular piece coming from the renowned Martinetti and Sangiorgi collections.

Byzantine pilgrim vessel with Jewish symbols

6th–7th centuries CE (Byzantine period)
Permanent display, “Blown Glass” | showcase 41

The rise in pilgrimages to Christian and Jewish holy sites in the land of Israel during the Byzantine period led to new types of glass products like this small hexagonal jar in the museum collection, which is decorated with Jewish symbols (such as the Menorah). This small hexagonal bottle belongs to a class is part of the family of glass vessels known as eulogia (Greek, blessing) vessels, which were decorated with Jewish or Christian religious symbols.

These small jars, amphoriskoi (small two-handled amphora vessels) and juglets blown in square, hexagonal or octagonal molds were sold to pilgrims living in or visiting the Holy Land. They were created to carry sacred souvenirs such as earth, consecrated oil, or water, and were mostly found in burial contexts dating to the sixth–seventh centuries CE, when pilgrimages to the Holy Land reached their apogee. They were possibly deposited as funerary offerings to express a longing for resurrection or eternal life.

Mamluk Mosque Lamp

14th century CE (Mamluk period)
Permanent display, “Blown Glass” | showcase 42

This beautifully preserved mosque lamp is an outstanding example of enameled and gilded Islamic glass from the Mamluk period (14th century CE). During this time, Mamluk sultans and emirs commissioned numerous lamps adorned with their names, titles, and heraldic blazons for mosques and other religious buildings in Cairo and other cities. These were large vases which could be hung from the ceiling by chains attached to their handles, or stood upon their bases in prayer niches. The oil which fueled them floated on water to keep the lamp cool, and the wick was usually fixed to keep it from sinking. The large, richly decorated lamps possibly contained smaller plain glass lamps.

This particular lamp was commissioned by the emir Sayf al-Din Malik al-Nasir al-‘Umari, whose name and illustrious titles appear on the body of the lamp. In 1355–6, the emir built a grand mosque in Cairo, for which this lamp was likely designed. Though many such lamps have been found in Egypt, they were typically made in Damascus or Aleppo.

The neck of the lamp bears a dedicatory inscription, rendered in blue on a gold background, which is punctuated by three blazons representing the emir’s rank as Cup-Bearer to the Sultan. It also features the famous verse from the Qur’an, Ayat al-Nur (Sura 24:35), “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth; His light is as a niche in which is a lamp,” underscoring the symbolic significance of the lamp and light in the Islamic faith.