Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/627

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN.] POTTERY 603 mil- Icy <rs. SECTION II. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN. But few examples remain which date from the time of the earlier dynasties of Egypt, though from the XVIIIth Dynasty downwards a great quantity of specimens exist. Broken fragments, embedded in the clay bricks of which some of the oldest pyramids are built, supply us with a few imperfect samples whose date can be fixed. The early pottery of Egypt is of many varieties of quality : some is formed of coarse brown clay moulded by hand without the aid of the wheel ; other specimens, thin and carefully wheel -made, are of fine red clay, with a slight surface gloss, something like the " Samian " pottery of the Romans. Some fragments of brown clay have been found, covered with a smooth slip made of a creamy white or yellowish clay. The early uss of fine coloured enamels, afterwards brought to such perfection in Egypt, is shown by the enamelled clay plaques in black, white, and greenish blue which decorated the doorway of the great step -pyramid at Sakkara. Each plaque has a pierced projection at the back, so that it could be firmly fixed by means of a wood or metal dowel. Egypt is rich in materials for pottery, both glazed and enamelled. The finest of clays is washed down and deposited by the Nile ; the sandy deserts supply pure silica ; and a great part of the soil is saturated with the alkali necessary for the composition of vitreous enamels and glazes. In spite, however, of this abundance of materials the Egyptians never learned to apply either their enamels or their glazes, both of great beauty, to their larger works in pottery made of the fine Nile clay. The reason probably was that the clay was too fat, and there fore a vitreous coating would have flaked off during the firing, while they had not discovered the simple expedient of mixing with the native clay an addition of sand (silica), which would have enabled both glazes and enamels to form a firm coating over the body of the vessel. The colours used for Egyptian enamels and glazes are very varied, and of great beauty and brilliance. The glazes themselves are pure alkaline silicates, free from lead. The enamels are the same, with the addition of oxide of tin. The metallic oxides used to give the colours are these, various shades of blue and green, protoxide of copper, or more rarely cobalt ; purple and violet, oxide of manganese ; yellow, iron or antimoniate of lead; red, sub -oxide of copper or iron ; black, magnetic oxide of iron or manganese. The white enamel is simply silicate of soda with oxide of tin. The blues and greens, whether used in transparent glazes or opaque enamels, are often of extreme magnifi cence of colour, in an endless variety of tints, turquoise, ultramarine, deep indigo, and all shades of blue passing into green. The most remarkable specimens of Egyptian enamel work are some clay plaques or slabs, about 10 inches high, which were used to decorate the walls of Rameses II. s palace at Tel al-Yahudiya, in the Delta (14th cent. B.C.). These have figures of men and animals executed in many different colours in the most complicated and ingenious manner. They are partly modelled in slight relief, and then covered with coloured enamels ; in other parts a sort of mosaic has been made by mixing fine clay and enamels into soft pastes, the design being fitted together and modelled in these coloured pastes while moist. The slab was then fired, and the enamel pastes were at once vitrified and fixed in their places by the heat. A third process applied to these elaborate slabs was to fit into cavities left for them certain small pieces of coloured glass or brilliant enamels, giving the effect of precious stones, which were fused into their places by a second firing. The chief figures on the plaques are processions of captives, about 8 inches high ; the enamel flesh is varied according to the nationality of the prisoners : negroes are black, others white, red, or yellow. Some of the dresses are represented with great richness : various embroidered or textile patterns of the most minute scale are shown by enamel inlay of many colours, and even jewel ornaments are shown by the inserted bits of glass ; the dress of some Assyrian captives has patterns of great beauty and richness, the sacred tree between the guardian beasts, and other figures. Besides these elaborate figure-reliefs an enormous number of smaller pieces of clay inlaid with different -coloured pastes were used to form a sort of mosaic wall-decoration in this wonderful palace, the ruins of which have supplied a perfect museum of all kinds and methods of enamelled work as applied to pottery. The British Museum and the Louvre have the finest specimens of these wall-slabs (see Birch, Ancient Pottery, p. 51, 1873). The term "Egyptian porcelain" has sometimes been given Mummy to the small mummy-figures in brilliant blues and greens, figures. This is a misnomer. The little figures, about 3 to 6 inches high, of which immense numbers have been found, mostly dating from about the XXth Dynasty downwards, are simply formed of sand (silica) with a little alkali, and only sufficient clay to cement them together, so that they could retain the form given them by the mould into which they were pressed. The result of analysis is silica 92, alumina 4, and a slight but varying proportion of soda. They are covered with a silicious glaze, brilliantly coloured with copper oxide, and are sometimes painted under the glaze with manganese, a deep purple -violet. A few of these figures, and also small statuettes of deities, have had oxide of tin mixed with the paste ; the figure has then been exposed to sufficient heat to fuse the whole into one homogeneous vitreous mass, and thus the statuette has become a solid body of fine blue enamel. A few small objects such as libation cups, bowls, and chalice-like goblets were also made of the same sandy paste, covered with blue-green glaze. They are thick and clumsy owing to the very unplastic nature of their paste, which necessitated their being pressed in a mould, not wheel -made. The splendour of their colour, however, makes them objects of great beauty ; they usually have a little painting, lightly executed in outline with manganese purple, generally a circle of fishes swimming or designs taken from the lotus-plant (see fig. 5). During the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties and later Wall- pottery was used in many ways for wall -decoration. tiles - Bricks or tiles of coarse brown clay were covered with a fine white slip and glazed with brilliant colours. Another method was a sort of in lay, formed by stamping incised patterns into slabs of clay and filling up the sinkings with a semi-fluid clay of some other colour, j| exactly like the 16th-century Oiron ware. A number of brilliant wall -tiles covered with deep blue glaze, and painted in black outline with figures and hieroglyphs, have been found in many places in- Lower Egypt ; the painting is very simple and decorative in FIG. 6. Egypt- effect, drawn with much skill and precision of touch. The Canopic vases are an important class and great Canopic quantities have been found in Egyptian tombs. They are vases - generally made of plain brown-red clay, and have a lid in FIG. 5. Egyptian blue-glazed pottery. lan Canopic

vase.