A Late Bronze Age glassmaking furnace and thousands of vibrant, multi-colored beads have been unearthed at the site of Frattesina in northern Italy. The remains of a clay furnace, glassworking tools and glass objects date to 3,000 years ago, making this the earliest known glassmaking site in Europe. The earliest known glass dates to around the 24th century B.C. and is believed to have originated in Syria. The first large-scale production of glass was in Amarna, Egypt, during the reign of 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten (1352-1336 B.C.). The composition of this ancient glass was soda- lime-silica glass made with an alkali that was likely plant ash. The plant ash resulted in high levels of potassium and magnesium oxides in the composition of the ancient glass. Chemical analysis of 2nd millennium B.C. glass from Mesopotamia and Mycenaean Greece has the same composition. The Frattesina glass is different. It is low in soda, calcium oxide and magnesium oxides, high in potassium oxide. They must have used a different alkali source. The Frattesina settlement was founded on the southern bank of the river Po about 25 miles from the Adriatic coast in the 12th century B.C. This location made it a major commercial hub of land, river and sea trade routes connecting transalpine Europe with the Mediterranean. A profusion of archaeological materials — imported goods (Alpine copper, Cornish tin, Baltic amber, north African elephant ivory, ostrich eggshells), evidence of large-scale craft production (bronze casting, antler/bone objects, ceramics, glass, products made from the imported raw materials), remains of cultivated plants and domesticated animals — attest to the rich diversity of its economy. From its founding until the early Iron Age (9th century B.C.), Frattesina received raw materials in trade, manufactured them into finished products and exported them over long-distance trade routes to central Europe, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. This is unusual for the period, when workshops operated on a smaller scale and were dedicated to producing goods for local consumption. Interestingly, the business of Frattesina appears to have been business. There were houses where people lived, spun thread/yarn, made clothes, cooked, processed and preserved food. There are two cemeteries were in use for centuries, and the town itself was clearly planned, but there are no defensive walls typical of urban centers of its Greek, Etruscan and Italic contemporaries and the population was modest. Other settlements in the area were much larger in population and area even though none of them had so many workshops manufacturing such a variety of products. The remains of Frattesina were discovered in 1967, and the site has been excavated and investigated ever since. Evidence of glass working was first published in 1983 and later excavations discovered more glass. In 2022, an archaeological mission of Rome’s La Sapienza university undertook a new excavation in an area of Frattesina where evidence of glass production had previously been found. [The excavation uncovered] thousands of multicoloured glass beads have been brought to light, together with other glass objects, testifying to an extraordinary production activity destined for the national and international market. Compositional analyses documented that the production technique was different from that used in the eastern Mediterranean, thus demonstrating the ability of the artisans of Frattesina to rework complex technologies in an original way. The excavation has also uncovered a furnace that was most probably used for glass production and therefore, together with other finds (crucibles, glass ingots), testify to the great importance of this craft production. The furnace for glass production is to date the oldest known in Europe. In addition to the excavations, geophysical surveys (a technique that allows information to be obtained on the environment and on objects placed at a distance through a sensor) conducted by Wieke de Neef of the University of Bamberg and remote sensing surveys have clearly defined the extension, shape and internal organisation of the large village: the settlement of Frattesina extended over more than 25 hectares and occupied the right bank of a branch of the Po no longer existing (Po di Adria) with an organisation by blocks originally delimited by orthogonal canals. Within these blocks, hundreds of dwellings and production facilities were arranged in a very regular manner and with an equally regular orientation.