238
Ancient Egyptian Bellows.
[Book III.
royal kitchens, and whose duty it was “ to see that soup when on the firewas neither burnt nor smoked.” a Among the relics that formerly be-longed to G-uy , the famous Earl of Warwick , is a cauldron or kitchenboiler, made of bell-metal, which contains 120 gallons, but whose capacitydoes not equal that of more ancient ones. b To the old custom of em-ploying persons exclusively at the bellows, as in the preceding cut, Vir-gil alludes in the following line:
One stirs the fire and one the bellows blows. En. viii.
Every modern bellows maker would be convinced from an inspectionof the last figures, that valves were employed, since the instruments couldnot possibly have acted without them; but all doubts respecting an ac-quaintance with the valve in those remote ages when the sculptures wereexecuted, is removed by two other bellows portrayed in the same tomb,and shown in the next cut. These differ from the preceding and were
perhaps intended to show another variety of the instrument as made inthose times. Their upper surfaces seem to have been of wood, in thecentre of which, the orifices of the valves are distinctly shown; the valvesor clacks were therefore inverted, as in our ordinary bellows turned up-side down. To persons not familiär with the subject, this circumstancemight excite surprise, but the dass to which these belohg have almost al-ways had the valve in the moveable board; and in whatever position theywere used—whether horizontally as in these figures, or vertically as inthe next. In Ceylon and other parts of the East they are used as shownin No. 104.
But are not both bellows in the last cut double-acting, that is, impellingair from them both when moved up as well as when pushed down! Fromthe figures it would seem that such were intended; for two pipes are rep-resented as proceeding from each, while one only is connected to those inNo. 103; and one instrument was deemed sufficient to occupy one la-borer—to this there possibly may be an allusion in the knots on the endsof the cords, which, in the hieroglyphical language of Egypt may sig-nify the greater liability of slipping through the hands, in eonsequenceof the superior force required to work them. Indeed four different bel-lows are represented. In No. 103, two are made of single bags, and twoof double ones, as appears by the bands around them : and in No. 104,one is round like the lantern bellows, and the other oblong, both kinds ofwhich are common at this day in the East; and both, as already re-marked, seem to be double acting like those of our smiths.
This variety was probably designedly introduced into the sculptures toaid in conveying to posterity a knowledge of the state of the arts at thattime in Egypt . The circumstance is an interesting one, and should leadto a more thorough examination of those wonderful, those eternal recordsof the arts and seienees of past ages, than has ever been given them; notonly every group but every figure among the millions imprinted on these
Fosbroke’s Eneyc. Antiq. b Moule’s English Counties. Lon. 1831.