IV

NOTES ON THE

conjectured to have reigned about 1450 B.C. The art of colouring glass wasalso invented at a very early period, for many coloured fragments are found in thetombs of Thebes, and a vitrified coating, usually blue or green, was given to objectsformed of earthenware and even of stone or granite.

As the objects of glass of Egyptian fabrication rarely bear inscriptions, it isnot easy to trace the progress of the art in that country, but as they are met withnot unfrequently in tombs in Egypt, it is probable that the manufacture continuedto flourish as well during the period of the native monarchy as in that of the Greekdynasty;* * * § its importance after the subjugation of that country to Rome wasprobably even increased by the new market thus opened for its products. Martialalludes to this importation in the epigram (Book xii. 74)—

Cum tibi Niliacus portet crystaUa cataplus,

Accipe de circo pocula Flaminio.

Hadrian in a letter addressed to the Consul Servianus, when enumerating thechief industrial occupations of the inhabitants of Alexandi'ia, includes among themthat of glass-blowing, j -

The manufacture was not, however, confined to Alexandria, for we are toldin the Periplus Maris Erythrsei, that among the articles imported into variousemporia on the Red Sea, were many sorts of glass and murrhine vases made atDios])olis4

The ordinance of Aurelian, that glass should form a part of the Egyptiantribute, shews that the manufacture in that country and the importation into Romecontinued in the latter part of the third century.

That there was considerable similarity between the glass manufactures ofEgypt and of Phoenicia, may be inferred, among other circumstances, from theaccounts we have of immense statues and obelisks in both countries, said to be ofemerald, but no doubt of green glass. Herodotus (Lib. ii., c. 44) tells us that hesaw in the temple of Herctdes at Tyre a statue or column of emerald; Plinymentions, on the authority of Apion, a statue of Serapis thirteen feet and a halfhigh in the Egyptian labyrinth, and, on the authority of Theophrastus, an obelisksixty feet high, in the temple of Jupiter in Egypt, composed of four emeralds.§It is probably not safe to assume that all glass objects found in Egyptian tombswere really made in Egypt, but many specimens found both there and elsewherebear unmistakeable marks of the art of that country (for instance,|| No. 14,

* A curious illustration of this is the account given by Strabo of the body of Alexander beingplaced in a sarcophagus of glass. Strabo, Lib. xvii., p. 795.

f “ Alii vitrum conflant.”

J Per. Mar. Erythr., C. 6. “ XiOiag vaXi'/r —.Worn ■yin] teal a\\*jc fioppivqQ rrj c yiro/ttVi/c iv Noa—oXti ”

were among the importations into an emporium in the territory of Zoscales, perhaps Massowah.According to Dr. Vincent (Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, Vol. ii., App., p. 730), this is notThehes, but the lower Diospolis, in Lower Egypt, on Lake Mensaleli.

§ Pliny, Lib. xxxvii., c. 5, § 19.

|| For this, and every similar reference, see the Catalogue.