Phoenician Glass Blowing

According to Pliny the Elder the first people to start making glass were the Phoenicians.
the invention of glass occurred on the Palestinian coast.

"He claimed that as natron merchants were sailing from Egypt, they brought their ships to shore at the mouth of the Belus River near Ptolemais. Lacking stones, they used some of their cargo to hold up their cooking pots. The heat from the fire caused the mixture of soda-rich natron and sand to fuse into glass" http://www.penn.museum/sites/roman%20glass/Glassmaking/glassmaking_intro.html

Though Pliny's explanation of how glass was first made is impossible the Phoenicians did have an important role in glass manufacturing. In 50 BCE the Phoenicians started using thin hollow glass rods to blow glass. The first evidence of blown glass ( Glass tubes Rods and small bottles) was found in Jerusalem.  This was a big step forward and the technology has not changed that much since that time. Glass blowing was started during the Roman Empire and because of this spread throughout the Roman Empire. After the Roman Empire glass making almost disappeared until revived in Venice in the thirteenth century.