"Stone... That Flows": Faience and Glass as Man-Made Stones in Egypt

The idea that faience and glass were substitutes for semiprecious stones in ancient Egypt and the Near East is not a new one. However, it is argued here that in an era before the processes of rock formation were understood, these materials may actually have been regarded as types of stone that were made by humans rather than by nature. While the users of faience and glass knew that these products were man-made, they may not have regarded them as substantially different from the natural substances. The workers in these materials may have been regarded as workers in stone of an artificial kind, and some of the earliest methods of working glass and stone may have been the same.