Volume II Part 32 (1/2)
Certain buildings in Memphis seem to have been decorated in the saht by ment of enaed to a wall lined with that fine material It is remarkable for the brilliant blue, the blue of the lapis-lazuli, which covers it The outlines of the hieroglyphs are as fires as sharp as if they were the work of a skilful carver, and had never been subjected to the heat of a furnace They are of blue stucco, inlaid into the body of the enaous to that of the Cairo divans, in which we see walls covered with earthenware tiles which are painted with various ornaments and subjects”[372] Now that attention has been attracted to this kind of decoration, traces of it will no doubt be found at ypt[373]
[372] _Description, Antiquites_, vol v p 543, and _Atlas_, vol v plate 87, Fig 1
[373] The collection of M Gustave Posno, which will, we hope, be soon absorbed into that of the Louvre, contains many enamelled bricks from decorative compositions like those in the stepped pyramid and the temple of Raue published at Cairo in 1874)
One of these, which has a yellow enamel, bears in relief the oval and the royal banner of Papi, of the sixth dynasty Another has the name Seti I; others those of Rameses III and Sheshonk
The reliefs upon which prisoners' heads appear must have come from Tell-el-Yahoudeh
These enamels were not always used upon stone or faience; their charrounds M
Maspero ments of a mummy case in the Turin Museum An inscription upon the wood is surrounded by faience ornament of a very rich colour Mariette also mentions bronzes in which the remains of enamel and of _pietra dura_ inlays are yet to be seen[374]
[374] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musee de Boulak_, p 69
Enalass coloured by means of a metallic oxide and spread thinly over a surface, hich it is coyptians lass at a very early date It is represented in the paintings at Beni-Hassan[375] Worklass bottles by means of a hollow cane, exactly as they do to this day This industry continued to flourish in Egypt down to the Rolass ypt possessed a peculiar vitrifiable earth, without which the lass could not be executed[376] It is generally supposed that this ”earth” was soda The Venetians of the lass-yptian soda is the best known It comes from the ashes of a plant called by botanists _Mesem Bryanthemum copticum_[377]
[375] WILKINSON, _Manners and Customs_, vol ii p 140
[376] STRABO, xvi ch ii -- 25
[377] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, text, p 313
Vessels of Egyptian glass are to be found in most museums, which recall those of Venice by their bands and fillets of brilliant colours As for ordinary glass it seems never to have been quite transparent and colourless; it was always tinged with green and slightly opaque It was upon their productions in colour that the falass-oblets, beads and other orna else that the ious quantities, both for domestic consumption and for exportation At one tiars of beads
Statuettes, such as the two figured beloere also er of the thich still has the hook, by which it was suspended, in its head, is entirely covered with parti-coloured ornaht shoulder Our draughtsun, and we have reproduced it in its actual condition rather than oree conjecturally The details given afford a sufficiently good idea of the yptian artist The orna 307), but the attitude is the same There are two colours on the very well modelled head which acts as tail-piece to the _Introduction_ in our first volulobe of the eye and its contours stand out in black against the yellow of the flesh The wig is also black
[Illustration: FIG 306--Glass statuette Boulak Actual size]
[Illustration: FIG 307--Glass statuette Boulak Actual size]
Nothing can have beento the ancient traveller who set foot upon the soil of Egypt for the first tilass and in green or blue faience They appeared everywhere; upon the walls of buildings and upon the persons of their inhabitants, upon every article which helped to furnish to shone with the brilliant colours of this enarateful to a southern eye It harmonized to perfection with the whiteness of the fine linen worn by the richer classes of Egyptians, and fores which bordered their robes and girdles Enamel was much more easily cleaned than cloth When it was tarnished by dust or dirt, a few drops of water would restore all its brightness The lavish eive the persons of the Egyptians and their dwellings that neat and sn visitors Herodotus tells us that one of the features which ly warned the traveller that he was in the presence of a very ancient and refined civilization, was the national passion for a cleanliness that was almost too fastidious, for fine linen constantly renewed, for frequent ablutions, for the continual use of the razor A nation dressed in spotless white, shaved, circumcised and continually washed, afforded a curious contrast to shaggy barbarians clothed in wool that was dirty with long usage Even in the time of Herodotus more than one tribe of Greek mountaineers was still in existence, that hardly differed in habits and costume from those early ancestors of the hellenes who, as Horound and never washed their feet”
-- 3 _Metal-work and Jewelry_
Egypt had, perhaps, her age of stone MM Hamy and Francois Lenormant have called attention to the cut and polished flints which have been found in Egypt, and Mariette brought a whole series of them to the Universal Exhibition of 1878 Mariette, however, was careful to remark that some of these flint implements, exactly similar in appearance to those found in the open air, were discovered in the to the ypte Ancienne a l'Exposition Retrospective du Trocadero_, 1878, pp 111, 112
WILKINSON, _The Manners and Custoyptians_, etc vol ii p 261
These flint knives, therefore, are not necessarily anterior to the coyptian history, that is to say to the first dynasties mentioned by Manetho Moreover, Herodotus tells us that it ith a flint knife that the Egyptian embalmer made his first incision upon the corpse entrusted to hiuish between prehistoric flint objects and those which belong to the civilization whose re, while our examination of the latter leads us quite as deeply into the past as we desire to go
[379] HERODOTUS, ii 86
Even under the earliest dynasties the Egyptians were metal-workers
Several bronze objects are in existence which date at least from the end of the Ancient Empire,[380] and in the bas-reliefs of the to tubes, upon the block of21, Vol I) This is a kind of elee tribes
[380] See page 197
The Egyptians began byuse of pure copper, which they could obtain from Sinai and other mines within easy reach Various indications allow us to conclude that they were long ignorant of the fact that byit with a little tin its hardness could be enormously increased[381] In any case, they had certainly discovered the secret during the fifth, or, at latest, the sixth, dynasty As to where they found the tin, we can say nothing positively No deposit of thatcountries