Distinction

• Although glass is sometimes considered a ceramic, ceramics have a crystalline structure, while the structure of glasses is amorphous.
  
  

Ceramics

• Ceramics, or pottery, emerged during the Neolithic Revolution as a solution to making vessels to hold liquids. The first major advance, circa 3000 BCE, was the potter's wheel, which enabled the production of perfectly round pots.
  
  

Types

• Earthenware was the original pottery process. Tougher, waterproof stoneware first appeared in China, during the Shang Dynasty. During the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese famously developed "true," hard porcelain, which was much prized in the West and long unsuccessfully imitated.
  
  

Glassware

• Glass beads from about 3500 BCE and have been found in Egypt and Mesopotamia, where glass vessel making evolved in the 16th century. The great breakthrough occurred with the invention of glass-blowing by Syrian craftsmen some time between 27 BCE and 14 CE.
  
  

Modern Mass Production

• The development of a process for mechanically pressing hot glass in the 1820s by Bakewell, Page and Bakewell of the United States made glassware affordable for all.