VI

NOTES ON THE

centuries later than those in which Tyre and Sidon flourished; for, as we may learnfrom the Periplus and from Strabo, glass in various forms was an article importedin the 1st and 2nd centuries, as well into the emporia of the Red Sea, as into theports of Britain.* Even at the present clay, beads are made at Venice for exportto Africa, which bear a resemblance, doubtless not accidental, to those which wehave reason to believe to be of very early date. Professor Buckman has given inthe Arclueological Journal (Vol. viii., p. 351), an analysis of a bead found in anancient British tumulus in Wiltshire; it was of a Prussian blue colour with whiterings, and contained silica, potash, soda, alumina in small quantity, traces of limeand magnesia, oxide of iron, and oxide of copper, j*

Many of the beautiful little vases found in tombs in the countries whose coastsare washed by the Mediterranean, and which are generally called Greek, are, thereis good reason to think, the products of Phoenician industry. M. Labarte, indeed,considers it certain that manufactories of glass vessels were established, at a veryremote period, in Sicily, the islands of the Archipelago, and Etruria. The closesimilarity, however, of the vessels of this class to each other, whether foundin the Greek islands, in Egypt, or in Italy, would lead us rather to suppose thatthey were produced in a few contiguous cities than in many places widely separatedfrom each other. In the latter case, the difference of materials within reach couldscarcely fail to cause appreciable dissimilarity in the products, even if the makerswere colonists of one and the same original stock.

The vases of this class (see Nos. 10 to 40) have usually the forms of eitheralabastra or amphora ?; the prevailing colour is a deep transparent blue, but notunffcquently the colour of the body of the vase is some shade of pale buff, fawn, orwhite (an imitation more or less exact of arragonite or Egyptian alabaster),sometimes deep green, and, in rare cases, red. In almost every example the surfaceis ornamented by bands of colour, white, yellow, or turquoise blue, $ forming zigzaglines (Plates I. and II. represent specimens of this description of vases); in somethere are only two or three such lines, and in others the whole surface is coveredby them. These lines are incorporated with the surface of the vessel, but do notpenetrate through its entire thickness. Examination of the interior will, in manycases, shew that it is rough and bears the appearance of having been moiddedupon a core of sand; this, however, appears to be less clearly so when the exampleis of a characteristically Egyptian form and colouring, and has been found in Egypt.It is, however, difficult to find a sufficient number of fractured specimens to allowa decided opinion to be formed on this point.

* Glass vares are often mentioned in the Periplus Maris Erythrsei, when the imports intoemporia of the Bed Sea are described. Strabo, when writing of the imports into Britain, mentionshaXa iricevr] (Lib. iv., c. 5, § 3). His words are somewhat ambiguous, and it has been supposedthat these articles of glass were exports from Britain, but it is much more probable that they wereimports.

t On the subject of beads, see a memoir by J. Y. Aterman, in Archmologia, Vol. xxxiv, p. 4G.j Due, it would appear by Sir H. Davy’s analysis, to cobalt (see ante, p. v.).