Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/411

Glass and Pottery. 375 These enamels were not always used upon stone or faience ; their charming varieties of tone are also found upon wooden grounds. M. Maspero mentions as an example of this the fragments of a mummy case in the Turin Museum. An inscription upon the wood is surrounded by faience ornament of a very rich colour. Mariette also mentions bronzes in which the remains of enamel and oi pietra dtira inlays are yet to be seen.^ Enamel is glass coloured by means of a metallic oxide and spread thinly over a surface, with which it is combined by means of heat. The Egyptians must therefore have understood the manufacture of glass at a very early date. It is represented in the paintings at Beni-Hassan.^ Workmen are shown crouched by a fire and blowing glass bottles by means of a hollow cane, exactly as they do to this day. This industry continued to flourish in Egypt down to the Roman epoch. The glass manufacturers of Alexandria told Strabo that Egypt possessed a peculiar vitrifiable earth, without which the magnificent works in many-coloured glass could not be executed.'^ It is generally supposed that this " earth " was soda. The Venetians of the middle ages imported the soda required for their glass-making from Alexandria. It is said that Egyptian soda is the best known. It comes from the ashes of a plant called by botanists Alesevi Bryanthernum coptiaim.^ Vessels of Egyptian glass are to be found in most museums, which recall those of Venice by their bands arid fillets of brilliant colours. As for ordinary glass it seems never to have been quite transparent and colourless ; it was always tinged with green and slightly opaque. It was upon their productions in colour that the fame of the Egyptian glass-makers depended. They produced vases, cups, paterse, goblets, beads and other ornaments for necklaces and bracelets, amulets and everything else that the material would allow, in prodigious quantities, both for domestic consumption and for exportation. At one time mummies were covered with a kind of garment composed of multitudinous strings of beads. Statuettes, such as the two figured below, were also made of ^ Mariette, Notice du Musee de Boulak. p. 69. - Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 140. 3 Strabo, xvi. ch. ii. § 25. •* Prisse, History de C Art Egyptien^ text, p. 313.