might be divided into three periods-periods, it is t

nfluenced by the varying schools and fashions of different ages and countries, but technically there is no great advance to be noted in the work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when compared with that of the early days of the Roman Empire; and this is still more true if we consider merely the materials employed, their preparation, and the methods of their fusion. But before the end of the eighteenth century a great change had set in. The manufactur

taken of that essential property of the material, we may class together in a primitive group. This line of demarcation is as important, to return to a comparison I have already made, as that between hand-moulded pottery and that thrown on the potter

s long ago as the days of the Middle Empire; by others the art was carried back to a still earlier period. We now have almost full assurance that glass in a true sense was practically unknown to the Egyptians before the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty (say between 1600 and 1500 B.C.),[7] and that for at least a thousand years after that period all that was made was produced by a primitive process in which the blowing-iron found no part. We have, unfortunately, up to the present time

f the material in connection with the native precious or semi-precious stones that it more or less resembled, and which were used along with it for decorative purposes. We do not know the Egyptian name for glass, but probably, like the Greeks, they divided all the h

On beads of clear rock crystal, dating from the First Dynasty, and it would seem from an even earlier period in some cases, we find a coating of turquoise blue transparent glaze[8]-the very glaze, in fact, that has given a prevailing tint to the vast series of smalle

at least by the solution in it of some of the silicates of alumina and lime in the clay. This glaze differs essentially from those used on true porcelain-these last are almost of the same composition as the ground they cover-but, as in the case of the glazes on porcelain, so the materials of the Egyptian glazes were probably first incorporated together in a

yst, greens from root of emerald and from a special kind of felspar, and blue from the turquoise and (at a very early period) from the lapis lazuli. But the stones to which they had recourse for their favourite blues and greens were rare, and they were therefore the more ready to find a cheaper substitute in glass. Again, in Egypt, no stone was in greater favour than the native alabaster,[9] with its bands and zig-zag lines of transparent crystals in an opaque base of a warm milky hue. But there was no play of colour in this latter substance, and its very softness restricted the uses to which it could be put. In glass they

ie has described the results of his excavations, more especially from the report issued in 1894, on his discoveries at Tell-el-Amarna. In the introduction to the catalogue of the Egyptian Exhibition

AT

S OF "PRIM

. PROBABLY FROM GREEK ISLANDS. 3.

ld then be reheated as often as needed for working by holding it in a furnace, the metal rod forming a handle, and the sand inside the vase preventing its collapse. Threads of coloured glass could then be wound round it and incorporated by rolling; the wavy pattern was produced by dragging

rescent-shape curves, or (ii) by means of a double drag, the pattern assumed a form like a

se relation of his successor, Akhenaten, the 'heretic king,' with Syria and Babylonia, as shown by his marriage, and by the famous Tell-el-Amarna tablets. As bearing on this question I may refer to certain paintings on a tomb of this age at Drag Aboul Neggah, near Thebes (reproduced in the Revue Archéologique, 1895, Pl. 15), which represent the unloading of a foreign trading-vessel. We can distinguish here the merchants offering certain objects of value to an Egyptian official; among these are certain striped vases which have been doubtfully recognised as of glass. In the hi

the silica. These pebbles served also for the floor of the furnace, and they were doubtless more easily crushed after being thus used for some time. The fritting-pans, to judge from some large fragments of frit that turned up, were shallow bowls some ten inches across. These pans were, it would seem, supported for firing by cylindrical jars resembling the seggars of porcelain works. The shape and size of the crucibles in which the frit was subsequently melted may be inferred from some masses of glass found in the rubbish. These masses had been allowed to cool in the melting-pot, and the presence of frothy and worthless matter at the top was a proof that the glass was not merely remelted in them, but prepared on the spot from the above-mentioned frit. The glass was left to solidify in the crucible, and when cold, the crucible, as well as the scum at the top, was chipped

ks. Now in the neighbourhood of Thebes fuel must always have been scarce and dear, and it is uncertain whether there was any source of soda near at hand. We may perhaps regard the glass-works of Tell-el-Amarna as due in the main to the caprice of that eccentric sovereign Akhenaten. They were probably started at his orders to supply the demand for the new material then coming into favour at his court. In so far as the making of glass eve

n early period, so much so that we may perhaps consider-and this is a suggestion that has indeed been already made by a French writer-that the invention of glazes in the first place, and then that of glass, were offshoots of the metallurgy of copper, and that these industries may therefore

ys been confined to various shades of turquoise, as in the well-known glazes and enamels of the Chinese and the French, and even these turquoise blues, always, as we have said, containing lime and soda as well as copper, have only been produced with great difficulty. The mastery of a complete series of copper blues, ranging through every shade from a blue-black to a pale greenish tu

lachite. A green glass, generally comparatively transparent, was indeed at times obtained when a certain amount of iron was present in the materials emplo

t is an interesting point that in early times the use of this red glass appears to have been confined to inlaid work-that is to say, it was never worked up with glass of other colours. This was, no doubt, for a practical reason: during the elaborate processes of patting, shaping, and reheating involved in the old system of working, the materials must have been exposed to a strong oxidising influence, and the basic red glass would thereby have lost its fine colour; it would also, perhaps, have injuriously affected the neighbouring colours. Some such difficulties in the working together of glasses of various colours may have influenced the Egyptians in adhering to their old system of inlays, employing, that is, small pieces, separately cast or cut out in the cold from

gyptians for colouring glass. In some of the little vases from the Greek islands and elsewhere it has, however, been employed to form a zigzag of the usual type upon an opaque whit

ite on a deep blue ground, constitute indeed the normal type of decoration in a whole series of these little vases. I can find no record of any analysis of this yellow colour, but we may well compare it with the fine yellow glazes of the Chin

le series of this primitive glass, indeed to a large extent to the glass of the Ro

l. Secondly, globular jars with a pair of small handles: these jars are sometimes flattened at the sides so as to pass into the shape of a pilgrim's flask. In a little vase of this latter form in the British Museum th

mply applied to the surface, and not incorporated into the glass, thus forestalling the later processes of enamelling upon glass. The vase in question is somewhat rudely formed; it is of an opaque paste of a rem

to mind certain early vases of wood or stone painted with a similar design. This vase, together with a cup of azure blue transparent paste, comes probably from the tomb of Amenophis II. An

e of deep blue, containing the royal name, 'inlaid'[15] in several colours. One comparatively large vase (several of them are as much as eight inches in height) is decorated by three rosettes in low relief. The twelve petals are of blue, gr

f white enamel; this enamel is now suffering from some kind of efflorescence and is falling off in scales. On another fragment in the Glass-Room we find yellow and white splashes on a black ground. This splashed ware is

ces of the inlaid designs-they generally represent hieroglyphics, and are inserted into a basis of wood-are sometimes of a considerable size; some kneeling figures of a late period, found near Tanis, are as much as four inches in height. Mr. Griffith found here, among the ruins of houses dating from early Ptolemaic times, some traces of glass-works, which allow us to supplement in a measure what we know of the manufacture in more remote periods. It may be remarked, however, that on the one hand no vases of the old chevron type were

the same as those found in the Eighteenth Dynasty glass, with the addition only of the orange-yellow tint to which I have already referred. It is in the centre of these wooden plaques that what are perhaps the largest pieces of Egyptian glass known to us are found. These are the scarab?i of opaque blue glass, at times so closely resembling lapis lazuli that the

TE

EGYPTI

E IMITATING LAPIS LAZUL

S, IN SHAPE OF COLUMN

AIC" FOR INLAY; FROM DE

to reduce the dimension of the design; when cold, transverse sections were cut, on each of which the pattern appeared. In other cases the design was excavated on the surface of the glass, the coloured paste pressed into the hollows when in a soft condition, and the whole plaque finally reheated so as to form a homogeneous mass. Some such process, at least, must have been adopte

wever, no trace of their manufacture has been found in any other country; and although we cannot attribute so early a date as the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt t

the Myc

t least seem to have been the case in Greece itself during the great centuries of Greek art, for nearly all the specimens of glass that we have from tombs of that time have been brought from more or les

glass to decorative purposes in Greece itself at this period, is to be found in the famous frieze discovered by Schliemann in the vestibule of the men's hall at Tiryns. The pattern, carved in low relief upon the alabaster slabs, was heightened by studs of blue glass fixed into these slabs at intervals. Some of the roundels of this glass, forming the centr

i; (2nd) with the blue colour obtained by pulverising this stone, and finally with the artificial imitation of this stone or of ultramarine. The classical passage is in Theophrastus (On Stones, § 55). This author distinguishes between the natural α?τοφυ?? and the artificial (σκευαστ??) kyanos. That by the first lapis lazuli is intended appears from an another passage (§ 39), where the gold dust distinctive of the lapis lazuli is cited as the peculiarity of the natural kyanos.... Theophrast

prus-the blue carbonate which the Ph?nicians brought to the Pharaohs, a

d on the spot. Indeed in all these tombs, next to the beads, the commonest examples of glass are the little rosettes and plaques cast in a mould with a design in low relief; these rosettes are often pierced with holes and were probably sewn on to the dresses of the women. The surface, and sometimes the whole body, is decomposed, presenting a white silvery glimmer, and this appearance Land

-Oscan tombs in Southern Italy, and even from Greco-Scythian tombs in Southern Russia-from, in fact, nearly all the lands visited by Ph?nician traders. How widely spread was the acquaintance with these little vases we may infer from the imita

ded knob; a jug-shaped form like the Greek oinochoe is also common. In some cases-in specimens of Egyptian origin very frequently-the surface of the glass is entirely unchanged. But when the decay of the surface has once set in, we generally

r to be combined with the more frequent blues and yellows. I have already noted that the use of red is very rare; where it appears, the technique of the vase appears to be different-the surface has p

re chevron vases of the usual type have been found attached by a fine chain of gold to the bracelet worn by the deceased (Tolstoi and Kondakof, Antiquités de la Russie Méridionale, 1891). The little bottles that we see in the hand

als of the P

later enamelled ware. The chevrons in such cases cannot have been 'dragged' by the old ingenious plan; they must have been elaborately applied one by one. We may recognise probably in such cases the survival of an old method of decoration a

ange with this 'primitive' glass the large beads-if beads they are to be called-in the form of satyr-like masks, so widely spread through Mediterranean lands (Pl. XV., 1), as well as those of irregular shape that so closely resemble the old 'bull's eye' sweetmeats, built up of interlacing bands of various col

s of glass of a more advanced type found in Gr

ve Glass of

if we are to judge by the contents of our museums, all these lands, at least up to the time of the conquest of Alexander, may be passed over as of no concern to the writer of a history of glass. If, however, we allow ourselves to be influenced by less material evidence, we shall find that a good case may be made out for the early existence of

lass handed down to us by Pliny and other writers. According to this tradition, glass was first made by Ph?nician traders on the coast of Syria. Here, at any rate, the three great requisites for the manufacture were at hand-a pure silica in the convenient form of a white sand, alkali either from the ashes of marine plants or from adjacent salt deposits, and finally, an abundant supply of fuel. And yet, for the present, all that c

in cuneiform characters containing the name of Sargon, together with his titles as king of Assyria; on it is also engraved the figure of a lion. Layard speaks of this vase as being shaped and hollowed on a turner's lathe after being 'blown in one solid piece' (Nineveh and Babylon, 1853)-a curious expression for one who interested himself so much in the manufacture of glass! We may, perhaps, regard it as having been carved like an object of rock crystal out of a solid piece of glass. We know of nothing like it from Egypt, but then the Egyptians had no love for transpar

parently without a break, through Persian and Sassanian times to their later Arab masters. In the Louvre are some slabs of a translucent glass of a fine turquoise tint, about three inches square, and three-quarters of an inch i

s dating from that period will best be treated in a later chapter along with the contemporary Byzantine glass. I may mention finally that there are one or two passages in our Greek classics that may point to the use of glass by the Persians in the fifth century B.C. F

17), is translated in the Vulgate by vitrum, but like the Greek ?αλο?, it may as well refer to rock crystal, or any other hard transparent substance. There is, however, a passage in Jeremiah (ii. 22) which is really of more interest to us. It begins, 'For though thou wash thee with

existence in these lands be once definitely established, we should be better able to fill up a gap in our history, and it would perhaps be then possible to s

semble the old wares. This glass is carried by Arab and Jewish pedlars as far, it is said, as the Soudan. Here, indeed, we have an industry that may well be regarded as a survival from very early days.[21] On the other hand, some two thousand years ago, as we learn from the evidence of the tombs, blo