PIIOTII-JIAIM.
Yet, notwithstanding the above explicit statement, it was long denied that the ancients were acquainted with glass properly so called ; nor did the denial en- tirely disappear even when Pompeii offered evidences of its want of foundation. Our knowledge of Egypt has, however, set the matter at rest. "Wilkinson, in his Ancient Egyptians (iii, 88 sq.), has adduced the fullest evidence that glass was known to and made by that ingenious people at a very early period of their national existence. Upwards of 3500 years ago, in the reign of the first Osirtasen, they appear to have practised the art of blowing glass. The process is represented in the paintings of Bcni-Hassan, executed in the reign of that monartli. In the same age images oi glazed pottery were common. Ornaments of glass were made l)y them about 1500 years B.C. ; for a bead of that date has been found, being of the same specific gravity as that of our crown glass. Many glass bot- tles, etc., have been met with in the tombs, some of very remote antiquity. Glass vases were used for holding wine as early as the Exodc. In Egypt they had the advantage not onh- of an earlier application to the art, but also of a peculiar earth, which appears to have been necessar}' to the production of some of the moi"e valualile and brilliant kinds of glass (Beckman, History of Inventions, " Colored Glass," i, 195 sq., Eng. transl. ; also iii, 208 sq. ; iv, 54). Yet the perfectly clear and transparent glass was considered the most valuable (Pliny, xxxvi, 2G). Indeed, a great part of tlic glass-ware used at Rome about the Christian a?ra and subsequently came from Alexandria ; and the em- p?ror Hadrian was presented hy an Egyptian priest with some vases which were reckoned so fine that they were produced only on grand occasions (Strabo, 1. xvii ; Vo]iiscus in Vita Saturnini, c. 8). Wilkinson states respecting the Egyptians, " Such was their skill
GLASS
il
GLASS
Ancient Egyptian tiluss-blowers : 1, from tlie nioniiiuents Thebes. " The glass at the end of the blow-pipe b bU colon a glass bottle.
in the manufacture of j^lass, and in the mode of staining it of various lines, that they counterfeited with success the amethyst and other precious stones, and even ar- rived at an excellence in the art wliicii tlieir successors have i)een unable to retain, and which our European workmen, in spite of their improvements in other branches of this manufacture, are still unable to imi- tate. For not onlj' do the colors of some Egyptian opaque glass offer the most varied devices on the ex- tsriur, distributed with the regularity of a studied de- sign, but the same hue and the same devices pass in right lines directlv through the substance ; so that in whatever part it is broken, or wherever a section may chance to be made of it, the same appearance, the same colors, and the same device present tliemselves, with- out being found ever to deviate from the direction of a straight line, from the external surface to the interior" {Ancifni Er/ypt. iii, 193). 'Winckelmann is of opinion that glass was emploj'ed more frequently in ancient than in modern times. It was sometimes used by the Egyptians even for coffins, and in wainscoting (" vi- trese camera;," Hist. Nat. xxxvi, Gi ; Stat. Sylv. i, v,
42). They also employed it not only for drinking utensils and lornaments of tlie person, but for mosaic work, the figures of deities, and sacred emblems, attaining to exquisite work- manship and a surprising bril- liancy of color. Tlieir imita- tion of precious stones in a manner which often defied de- tection (Pliny, Jlist. Naturalis, xxxvii, 26, 33, 75) is probably the explanation of the incredi- bly large gems which we find mentioned in ancient authors ; e. g. Larcher considers that the emerald column alluded to by Herodotus (ii, 4-1) was " du verre colore, dont I'interieur etait eclaire par des lampes." The art, too, of cutting glass was known to them at the most remote periods ; for which pur- pose, as we learn from Pliny at lieni-llassan; 2, Ironi (//«/■. A'ai^ara/w, xxxvii, 4), the d green : a is the fire :(/,,• , , r, t? .
° ' ' ' diamond was used, hoe En-
grave. The art of manufacturing glass was also known to the ancient Assyrians (Layard, Niner. ii, 42), and a glass bottle was found in the north-west palace of Nimrud which has on it the name of Sargon, and is there- fore probably older than B.C. 702 (id. Nin. and Bah. p. 167). This is the earliest known spe- cimen of transparent glass. Opaque colored glass wasmanufactured by the Assyrians at a much earlier period, and some specimens exist of the 1.5th centu- ry B.C. The Sargon vase had been blown in one piece, and turned and hol- lowed out afterwards. In the mounds of Babylon were likewise found small glass bottles, some colored, others ribbed and otherwise ornamented, and vases of earthen-ware of various forms and sizes, sometimes glazed with a rich blue color (ib. p. 429).
Glass Bottle from Nimr'.d.
Glass Bottk^ ind Iiij; Tium the lombs of Kgypt. III.— K K K
Glass Bottles and glazed Earthen- ware Vessel from the Jlound of Bab;i.
Other glass vessels of the Roman period were else- where discovered (ib. p. 504). With the glass bowls was discovered a rock-crystal lens, which must have been used as a magnifving or burning-glass (ib. p. 167). In later times glass was abundant for similar purposes among the Romans, as is evident from the specimens disinterred from the ruins of Pompeii. See Bottle.