THE PRIMITIVE GLASS OF THE EGYPTIANS AND SYRIANS
From a technical point of view the history of glass might be divided
into three periods—periods, it is true, of very unequal length and
relative importance.
The first of these, one more especially of archæological interest,
would include all the glass made before the discovery of the process of
forming a vesicle by blowing through a hollow tube. Nearly all the
glass that finds its way into our collections would be classed in the
second period; this would extend from the beginning of our era to the
end of the eighteenth century. In the course of these long centuries,
the work of the glass-maker has of course been influenced by the
varying schools and fashions of different ages and countries, but
technically there is no great advance to be noted in the work of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when compared with that of the
early days of the Roman Empire; and this is still more true if we
consider merely the materials employed, their preparation, and the
methods of their fusion. But before the end of the eighteenth century a
great change had set in. The manufacture of glass in England and France
had become an important industry, and we enter upon the third or
industrial period. With the general advance in mechanical processes
that is so characteristic of the time, the old methods of the working
of glass were swept aside, so that before the middle of the last
century, whatever of interest was to be found in the manufacture and in
its results depended upon anything rather than upon the artistic
qualities of the glass made.
Now, as I have said, the characteristic and dominant quality of glass
is to be found in its capability of being blown into vessels of varying
shape when in a viscous and semi-fluid state. All glass then, made at a
time when advantage had not yet been taken of that essential property
of the material, we may class together in a primitive group. This line
of demarcation is as important, to return to a comparison I have
already made, as that between hand-moulded pottery and that thrown on
the potter’s wheel. The objects made in the earlier period by primitive
processes were mostly small, and their merit depended chiefly upon the
brilliancy and the skilful juxtaposition of a few simple colours—they
may for the most part be classed as _verroterie_.
It has long been acknowledged that it is from Egypt that our earliest
specimens of glass have come. But until quite recently the greatest
misconceptions have prevailed as to the age and the methods of
preparation of Egyptian glass. Misled by an erroneous interpretation of
what are probably representations of metallurgical processes, on the
walls of Twelfth Dynasty tombs at Beni Hassan and elsewhere, it was
inferred that the art of blowing glass was known to the Egyptians at
least as long ago as the days of the Middle Empire; by others the art
was carried back to a still earlier period. We now have almost full
assurance that glass in a true sense was practically unknown to the
Egyptians before the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty (say between 1600
and 1500 B.C.),[7] and that for at least a thousand years after that
period all that was made was produced by a primitive process in which
the blowing-iron found no part. We have, unfortunately, up to the
present time absolutely no evidence to show in what country or at what
date this new process—I mean the blowing of a vesicle of glass—first
came into use. There is, as we shall see, some reason to look for it
rather in Western Asia than in Egypt, but the important point to bear
in mind is that it was only after the introduction of this process of
blowing, first to Alexandria and then to the Rome of the early empire,
that the employment of glass for objects of daily use became in any way
general.
Glass, indeed, in these early days, whether in Egypt or in the Greek
world of the Mycenæan age, was something very different from what
we now understand by the term. We must ‘think away’ a great deal of
the modern connotation of the word. We must, above all, think of the
material in connection with the native precious or semi-precious stones
that it more or less resembled, and which were used along with it for
decorative purposes. We do not know the Egyptian name for glass, but
probably, like the Greeks, they divided all the hard stony bodies used
in the arts into such as were ‘dug up’—natural products, that is, which
they found ready at hand—and such as had been artificially prepared,
and above all previously melted (the Λίθος όρωρυγμένη on the one hand,
and the Λίθος χυτή on the other).
If, as I have said, there is little evidence for the existence of glass
in Egypt before the Eighteenth Dynasty, it is quite otherwise with
regard to a very similar substance, identical almost in chemical
composition—one whose history can be traced much further back. On
beads of clear rock crystal, dating from the First Dynasty, and it
would seem from an even earlier period in some cases, we find a coating
of turquoise blue transparent glaze[8]—the very glaze, in fact, that
has given a prevailing tint to the vast series of smaller objects of
Egyptian art that we see in the cases of our museums. A similar colour,
I may observe, continued in favour in Mohammedan times, and indeed
gives a dominant note to Oriental art in contrast to the ochry tints of
yellow, red, and brown prevalent in the West.
The Egyptians soon learned to apply this blue glaze—essentially a
silicate of soda and copper—to the surface of other natural stones,
and above all to a fritty porous earthenware, the so-called Egyptian
porcelain. Such an alkaline glaze, indeed, will only adhere to a porous
base of this kind, with which it becomes united on firing, by a
chemical reaction, or at least by the solution in it of some of the
silicates of alumina and lime in the clay. This glaze differs
essentially from those used on true porcelain—these last are almost of
the same composition as the ground they cover—but, as in the case of
the glazes on porcelain, so the materials of the Egyptian glazes were
probably first incorporated together in a partially fused frit which
was then ground and mixed with water to form a soup-like ‘slip,’ into
which the object to be glazed was dipped. There have been brought from
Egypt a few rare objects carved out of a blue frit (probably similar to
that used in the preparation of glazes), for which a very early date
has been claimed. But such a frit is no true glass.
The Egyptians had from the earliest periods been adepts in the carving
of native minerals and rocks, and evidently found great pleasure in the
strange markings and contrasts of colour found on their polished
surfaces. Already in pre-dynastic times they availed themselves of
their native granites, porphyries and conglomerates; from these
materials they manufactured those large, carefully turned vases of
which so many have lately been brought from Egypt. For smaller
objects—jewellery, beads, and inlay of various descriptions—they had
command of a wide scale of colours—reds and tawny yellows from jasper,
purple from the amethyst, greens from root of emerald and from a
special kind of felspar, and blue from the turquoise and (at a very
early period) from the _lapis lazuli_. But the stones to which they had
recourse for their favourite blues and greens were rare, and they were
therefore the more ready to find a cheaper substitute in glass. Again,
in Egypt, no stone was in greater favour than the native alabaster,[9]
with its bands and zig-zag lines of transparent crystals in an opaque
base of a warm milky hue. But there was no play of colour in this
latter substance, and its very softness restricted the uses to which it
could be put. In glass they found a substance hard enough to allow of
more delicate forms, and on it chevrons of yellow and white could be
traced upon a nearly opaque ground of turquoise or dark blue. Some such
origin in native stones we may perhaps find for the decorative motives
of the little vases, variously known as _phialæ_, _unguentaria_,
_alabastra_, which were in such favour not only with the Egyptians, but
perhaps even more so among the inhabitants of the islands and coasts of
the Mediterranean, during a period of at least a thousand years. It is
indeed these little vases that are the most characteristic product of
the first period of glass-making.
It is not too much to say that the little we know of the processes of
these early Egyptian glass-makers is derived from notices on the
subject scattered through the memoirs in which Dr. Flinders Petrie has
described the results of his excavations, more especially from the
report issued in 1894, on his discoveries at Tell-el-Amarna. In the
introduction to the catalogue of the Egyptian Exhibition held at the
Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1895, Dr. Petrie has summed up our
knowledge on this subject. I will quote the description of the method
by which, according to him, these alabastra were made.
[Illustration:
_PLATE II_
SMALL VASES OF “PRIMITIVE” GLASS
1. EGYPTIAN, NINETEENTH DYNASTY. 2. PROBABLY FROM GREEK ISLANDS. 3.
ŒNOCHOE, FROM THE SLADE COLLECTION.]
‘A metal rod of the size of the intended interior of the neck, and
rather conical, was coated at the end with a ball of sand held together
by cloth and string. This was covered with glass, probably by winding a
thread of glass round it, as large beads of this age are thus made. The
vase could then be reheated as often as needed for working by holding
it in a furnace, the metal rod forming a handle, and the sand inside
the vase preventing its collapse. Threads of coloured glass could then
be wound round it and incorporated by rolling; the wavy pattern was
produced by dragging the surface in different directions, the foot was
pressed into shape by pincers, the brim was formed, and the handles
were put on. Lastly, on cooling, the metal rod would contract and come
loose from the neck, and after it was withdrawn the sand could be
rubbed out from the body of the vase.’
The wavy decoration thus obtained was of two types: (i) formed simply
by a succession of crescent-shape curves, or (ii) by means of a double
drag, the pattern assumed a form like a frond of palm leaves, or still
more like these leaves plaited into a basket. (Cf. Pl. II.)
The number of these little vases that can be definitely attributed to
the Eighteenth Dynasty (say about the sixteenth or fifteenth century
B.C.) is small, but it is worthy of note that for brilliancy of colour
and for purity of the glassy paste, the early examples are unsurpassed
in later times. This is certainly a remarkable fact, especially if we
are to regard the art as a new one. I cannot enter here into the
evidence that would seem to point to a foreign origin for this early
Egyptian glass—it will be enough to mention the conquests of Thothmes
III. in Syria, and the close relation of his successor, Akhenaten, the
‘heretic king,’ with Syria and Babylonia, as shown by his marriage, and
by the famous Tell-el-Amarna tablets. As bearing on this question I may
refer to certain paintings on a tomb of this age at Drag Aboul Neggah,
near Thebes (reproduced in the _Revue Archéologique_, 1895, Pl. 15),
which represent the unloading of a foreign trading-vessel. We can
distinguish here the merchants offering certain objects of value to an
Egyptian official; among these are certain striped vases which have
been doubtfully recognised as of glass. In the hieroglyphics
accompanying wall paintings of this period we more than once find that
vessels of rock crystal and _lapis lazuli_ are mentioned, as well as
blocks of uncut stones, and neither by the hieroglyphics used nor by
the representation of the objects would it be easy to distinguish the
latter material from lumps of glass. Again, Syrian workmen are known to
have been employed at this time in Egypt, and nowhere would this be
more likely than in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace of the
king at Tell-el-Amarna, where the glass-works described by Dr. Petrie
were situated.
All this, however, is mere conjecture, while as an argument for the
native origin of Egyptian glass we have the indisputable fact that the
manufacture was carried on in the new town established by Akhenaten at
Tell-el-Amarna (_circa_ 1450-1400 B.C.). This is made clear by the
discoveries of Dr. Petrie in the winter of 1891-92. Among the
waste-heaps of some important glass factories he has found enough
material to put it beyond doubt that glass was there prepared from its
raw constituents. First, with regard to the frits, the essential
preliminary stage in the manufacture of glass: as I have said, some
such half-fused material must have been long in use by the Egyptians in
the preparation of their blue glazes. Complete freedom from iron was
attained in this case (just as in after days by the Venetians) by the
employment of crushed pebbles of white quartz as the source of the
silica. These pebbles served also for the floor of the furnace, and
they were doubtless more easily crushed after being thus used for some
time. The fritting-pans, to judge from some large fragments of frit
that turned up, were shallow bowls some ten inches across. These pans
were, it would seem, supported for firing by cylindrical jars
resembling the seggars of porcelain works. The shape and size of the
crucibles in which the frit was subsequently melted may be inferred
from some masses of glass found in the rubbish. These masses had been
allowed to cool in the melting-pot, and the presence of frothy and
worthless matter at the top was a proof that the glass was not merely
remelted in them, but prepared on the spot from the above-mentioned
frit. The glass was left to solidify in the crucible, and when cold,
the crucible, as well as the scum at the top, was chipped away, leaving
a clear lump of good glass. Dr. Petrie thinks that this glass was not
remelted as a whole for subsequent working, but that lumps of suitable
size were chipped off, and these, being heated to softness, ‘were then
laid on a flat surface and rolled by a bar worked diagonally across
them; ... the marks of this diagonal rolling are seen on the finished
rolls.’ The rods thus produced were now drawn out to form a cane, or,
if previously rolled flat, a thin ribbon. Beads were formed by winding
these canes or threads of glass round a wire, or rather round a fine
rod of hammered bronze, for wire-drawing was an invention of a much
later date; such rods have indeed been found with the unfinished beads
still on them. Similar canes of glass were doubtless worked in to the
sides of the little vases to form the banded and chevron decoration
which I have already described.
The silica for this glass was derived, as we have seen, from quartz
pebbles, but we have no information as to the source of the other
important constituent, the alkali. It is known, however, that the glass
of the ancients was essentially a soda-glass, made for the most part in
maritime regions. Again, the possibility of obtaining an abundant
supply of fuel has always been an important element in the selection of
localities for glass-works. Now in the neighbourhood of Thebes fuel
must always have been scarce and dear, and it is uncertain whether
there was any source of soda near at hand. We may perhaps regard the
glass-works of Tell-el-Amarna as due in the main to the caprice of that
eccentric sovereign Akhenaten. They were probably started at his orders
to supply the demand for the new material then coming into favour at
his court. In so far as the making of glass ever became an industry in
Egypt, we must look rather to the neighbourhood of the Delta for its
development. There at least fuel would be more abundant, and there a
supply of soda was at hand in the ashes of marine plants, even if the
natron of the adjacent salt lakes was not yet used for the purpose.[10]
But until a much later date, glass was always a somewhat rare substance
in Egypt, and was, it would seem, never produced on a large scale.
I must now say something as to the source of the colours with which the
Egyptians stained their glass. In the absence of any satisfactory
analyses, we are strangely in the dark on this interesting
question.[11] But everything points to the predominance of copper as a
colouring material at an early period, so much so that we may perhaps
consider—and this is a suggestion that has indeed been already made by
a French writer—that the invention of glazes in the first place, and
then that of glass, were offshoots of the metallurgy of copper, and
that these industries may therefore be especially connected with the
copper age. In any case, it was in all probability not, as in later
days, a more or less transparent and colourless glass, but rather one
of a pale or dark blue colour, that at the commencement formed the
basis to which a decoration of other colours was added.
The famous blue of the Egyptians, of which we hear from Vitruvius and
other later writers, was essentially a silicate of soda, lime, and
copper. It should be borne in mind that without the presence of the
first two bases—the lime and the soda—a good copper blue in glass or
glaze cannot be obtained. Indeed in the case of porcelain and fayence,
the blues obtained from copper have always been confined to various
shades of turquoise, as in the well-known glazes and enamels of the
Chinese and the French, and even these turquoise blues, always, as we
have said, containing lime and soda as well as copper, have only been
produced with great difficulty. The mastery of a complete series of
copper blues, ranging through every shade from a blue-black to a pale
greenish turquoise, we may thus regard as a special triumph of the old
Egyptians. At one period a darker shade has been in favour, at another
a paler hue, according as the _lapis lazuli_ on the one hand, or the
turquoise or green felspar on the other, was taken as the standard of
excellence, so that the shade of colour of the glaze on a scarab or a
bead may at times throw some light on its date.
Distinct shades of green, apart from greenish blue, were much less in
favour with the Egyptians, nor did they ever attain to the brilliant
tints of the malachite. A green glass, generally comparatively
transparent, was indeed at times obtained when a certain amount of iron
was present in the materials employed; but this was merely an
accidental modification of the blue. The pale tint of the green felspar
was also imitated in an opaque glass used for inlaying.
For their reds the Egyptians were content to imitate the colour of the
jasper, and here again they had recourse to copper; the transparent
ruby tints of the mediæval workmen, whether obtained from copper or
gold, were unknown to them. Their opaque red glass owed its colour to
the presence, in large quantities, of the basic oxide of copper. In
later specimens as much as 15 or even 20 per cent. has been found; some
tin seems to be always present, giving an opaque enamel-like appearance
to the Egyptian red—perhaps the colour was prepared directly from
bronze. We often find this red paste oxidised on the surface; the
coating of green carbonate then gives it the appearance of a richly
patinated bronze, the blood-red body only showing when the specimen has
been chipped. It is an interesting point that in early times the use of
this red glass appears to have been confined to inlaid work—that is to
say, it was never worked up with glass of other colours. This was, no
doubt, for a practical reason: during the elaborate processes of
patting, shaping, and reheating involved in the old system of working,
the materials must have been exposed to a strong oxidising influence,
and the basic red glass would thereby have lost its fine colour; it
would also, perhaps, have injuriously affected the neighbouring
colours. Some such difficulties in the working together of glasses of
various colours may have influenced the Egyptians in adhering to their
old system of inlays, employing, that is, small pieces, separately cast
or cut out in the cold from slabs of glass of various colours. In such
inlays the red paste was freely used from early times. On the other
hand, I do not think that this fine copper red has ever been found on a
glass vase of Egyptian _provenance_. On a few rare examples of later
date (note especially two alabastra in the Slade collection, Nos. 15
and 35) we find indeed an opaque red combined with other colours, and
in one case it forms the base (Plate II.). This red paste is of a
peculiar spotty consistence, and I am inclined to think that the
colouring matter in these examples is rather iron than copper. In later
days the Egyptians made use of another tint, a fine orange. This
colour, indeed, would seem to be the only addition to their palette
during a period of more than fifteen hundred years.
The purple tint derived from oxide of manganese was known from very
early times; the colour has been found in the glazes of the First
Dynasty. It was, however, rarely used by the Egyptians for colouring
glass. In some of the little vases from the Greek islands and elsewhere
it has, however, been employed to form a zigzag of the usual type upon
an opaque white ground. If we so rarely find this amethyst purple
combined with other colours, this is probably for a reason of a similar
nature to that dwelt upon in the case of the copper red.
Next to the two shades of blue, the colour most frequently found on
Egyptian glass is a yellow, at times of a full mustard tint, but more
often of a paler hue. Feather-like curved chevrons of this colour,
combined with turquoise and opaque white on a deep blue ground,
constitute indeed the normal type of decoration in a whole series of
these little vases. I can find no record of any analysis of this yellow
colour, but we may well compare it with the fine yellow glazes of the
Chinese where the colour is derived from a mixture of an ochry earth
with an oxide of antimony. There is no doubt that this last metal was
known to the Egyptians; it was used at an early period by the women to
darken the outline of their eyes.[12]
What has been said of the colours used by the Egyptians applies equally
to the whole series of this primitive glass, indeed to a large extent
to the glass of the Romans as well. It will form, I hope, a solid
introduction to the subject generally.
The little vases or _unguentaria_—by far the most important objects in
this division of our subject—occur in Egypt in two forms. First, the
true columnar kohl-pots, spreading out at the top in the form of a
lotus capital. Secondly, globular jars with a pair of small handles:
these jars are sometimes flattened at the sides so as to pass into the
shape of a pilgrim’s flask. In a little vase of this latter form in the
British Museum the paste is of a deep, somewhat translucent, brownish
red (Plate II.), and this colour passes in other examples into a rich
transparent honey-red or hyacinth tint. The colour in both cases is, I
think, derived from iron.
Of quite exceptional interest is the little vase in the British Museum,
bearing the _prænomen_ of Thothmes III., painted in yellowish enamel
round the shoulder. I say painted, for in this case the decoration is
simply applied to the surface, and not incorporated into the glass,
thus forestalling the later processes of enamelling upon glass. The
vase in question is somewhat rudely formed; it is of an opaque paste of
a remarkably fine turquoise hue, and the sides are decorated with three
conventional trees also in yellow enamel. This vase has been regarded
as the earliest dated specimen of true glass that is so far known to
us.[13]
The British Museum has lately acquired a curious vessel of glass, five
inches in height, somewhat of the shape of a Greek _crater_. The wavy,
dragged decoration on a pale slaty ground calls to mind certain early
vases of wood or stone _painted_ with a similar design. This vase,
together with a cup of azure blue transparent paste, comes probably
from the tomb of Amenophis II. Another little vase in the same
collection, of _aryballos_ outline, has been shaped apparently by the
lathe—so accurate is the form—from a mass of opaque turquoise paste
of frit-like nature.[14]
It was in the tombs of Amenophis II. and III., in the Valley of the
Kings, near Thebes, that the unique series of glass vases, now in the
Cairo Museum, was found (excavations of 1898-99). On more than one of
these is a cartouche, a rectangle of deep blue, containing the royal
name, ‘inlaid’[15] in several colours. One comparatively large vase
(several of them are as much as eight inches in height) is decorated by
three rosettes in low relief. The twelve petals are of blue, green, and
red (the latter colour quite superficial) on a white ground. Still more
remarkable is a vase with galloping horses and negroes; in this case
the design is apparently inlaid on the interior, and only seen through
the transparent body.
The little pots for cosmetics, in the shape of truncated cones, are
usually made of a turquoise-glazed fayence. Those of glass are very
rare; one in the British Museum is decorated on a nearly black base
with splashes of white enamel; this enamel is now suffering from some
kind of efflorescence and is falling off in scales. On another fragment
in the Glass-Room we find yellow and white splashes on a black ground.
This splashed ware is characteristic, I think, of the later
dynasties—the twentieth and the twenty-first. We are reminded by it of
a similar application of enamel colours to glass that was much in
favour in France in the seventeenth century.
Apart from these little vases, the glass found in Egypt is confined to
pieces for inlay and to beads or other small objects of _verroterie_.
For the inlay the glass was rolled into slabs and cut out in the
desired shape, the surface also being often carved in low relief: in
later times the separate pieces were usually cast in open moulds.
Beside the colours commonly used in the decoration of the vases, we
find also an imitation of the pale green felspar, and the use of a red
paste is, as I have said, more frequent. The individual pieces of the
inlaid designs—they generally represent hieroglyphics, and are
inserted into a basis of wood—are sometimes of a considerable size;
some kneeling figures of a late period, found near Tanis, are as much
as four inches in height. Mr. Griffith found here, among the ruins of
houses dating from early Ptolemaic times, some traces of glass-works,
which allow us to supplement in a measure what we know of the
manufacture in more remote periods. It may be remarked, however, that
on the one hand no vases of the old chevron type were discovered—and
this is true, I think, of all the finds of glass from later deposits in
Egypt—nor on the other hand, as far as I am aware, have any specimens
of blown glass been found even among Ptolemaic remains. At Tanis were
found many small moulds of terra-cotta and limestone into which the
molten glass was run—so, at least, says Mr. Griffith (_Egyptian
Exploration Fund. Tell Nebeshah. 1888_). In earlier times, at any rate,
the process seems rather to have been to press down into the moulds
little pellets of glass in a pasty state.
In the Glass-Room at the British Museum may be seen an interesting
collection of this later glass of Ptolemaic or perhaps Roman date,
found at Denderah. There are many fragments of glass paste destined
probably to be fitted into hollows cut in a wooden plaque, the
intervening surface being covered with gilt _gesso_. Here, as at Tanis,
the colours are practically the same as those found in the Eighteenth
Dynasty glass, with the addition only of the orange-yellow tint to
which I have already referred. It is in the centre of these wooden
plaques that what are perhaps the largest pieces of Egyptian glass
known to us are found. These are the scarabæi of opaque blue glass, at
times so closely resembling _lapis lazuli_ that their true nature has
been in dispute. Even the white marblings and spots of the native stone
are imitated; indeed, in one specimen in the collection of Mr. Hilton
Price, the little grains of pyrites in the stone, so much admired by
the ancients, have been imitated by _paillettes_ of gold scattered in
the paste. (Cf. the passage from Theophrastus quoted below, p. 35.)
[Illustration:
_PLATE III_
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GLASS
1. SCARAB OF GLASS PASTE IMITATING LAPIS LAZULI. TWENTY-SECOND DYNASTY
2. FLASK FOR COSMETICS, IN SHAPE OF COLUMN WITH PAPYRUS CAPITAL
3. PLAQUE OF “FUSED MOSAIC” FOR INLAY; FROM DENDERAH, PTOLEMAIC PERIOD]
But the Egyptians made use also of other processes partaking of the
nature both of inlay and mosaic. Taking advantage of the fact that
pieces of glass when softened by heat adhere to one another—they are
in fact in this condition as ‘sticky’ as partially melted sugar—they
formed a mosaic of small rods of glass; these were heated to a plastic
condition, and if desired drawn out to reduce the dimension of the
design; when cold, transverse sections were cut, on each of which the
pattern appeared. In other cases the design was excavated on the
surface of the glass, the coloured paste pressed into the hollows when
in a soft condition, and the whole plaque finally reheated so as to
form a homogeneous mass. Some such process, at least, must have been
adopted in the preparation of the large slabs, generally with a ground
of deep blue glass, of which a fine series may be seen in the Egyptian
department of the British Museum. Elaborate work of this kind dates for
the most part from Ptolemaic and even Roman times. Similar processes we
shall come across again, in the case of the _millefiori_ glass and the
inlaid wall-plates of the Romans.
It is but a comparatively small number of the little glass vases with
chevron patterns in our collections that have come from Egypt; up to
the present time, however, no trace of their manufacture has been found
in any other country; and although we cannot attribute so early a date
as the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt to any of the little glass jugs and
amphoræ found in Greek and Etruscan tombs, this ‘Mediterranean’ glass
is in every respect subsidiary to the Egyptian series.
GLASS IN THE MYCENÆAN AGE
It would, indeed, be quite beside the mark to make a separate division
for the glass of the Greeks, who for one reason or another appear never
to have found much attraction in the material. This would at least seem
to have been the case in Greece itself during the great centuries of
Greek art, for nearly all the specimens of glass that we have from
tombs of that time have been brought from more or less outlying lands,
from Southern Italy, Sardinia or Etruria, above all from the islands of
Rhodes and Cyprus, where the older culture long survived, and where
Phœnician and Egyptian influences were strong.
Such a statement, however, would not hold for the so-called Mycenæan
Age. At that time glass was indeed a rare material brought by Phœnician
merchants from Egypt, perhaps from Syria also. In some cases this
imported glass may have been remelted and worked up again; it was
certainly highly prized.[16] Perhaps the most striking instance of the
application of glass to decorative purposes in Greece itself at this
period, is to be found in the famous frieze discovered by Schliemann in
the vestibule of the men’s hall at Tiryns. The pattern, carved in low
relief upon the alabaster slabs, was heightened by studs of blue glass
fixed into these slabs at intervals. Some of the roundels of this
glass, forming the centre of rosettes, are as much as three-quarters of
an inch in diameter. We have the authority of Virchow for stating that
this is a soda-lime glass, coloured by copper—an analysis showed no
trace of cobalt. On the other hand, cobalt has been found by German
chemists in beads of an otherwise similar composition from Mycenæ and
from the bee-hive tombs of Attica.
Now the question has arisen: Is this glass inlay to be identified with
the _kyanos_ which, as Homer tells us, formed the frieze or cornice
(θριγκός) round the bronze walls in the palace of Alkinoos? Helbig,
writing before the discovery of the frieze at Tiryns, maintained
that the poet’s _kyanos_ was of a glassy nature. He tells us (_Das
Homerische Epos_, pp. 79 _seq._, quoted in Schliemann’s _Tiryns_)—‘This
kyanos must be identified not with blue steel, but with (1st) the
later Σαπφειρός—_lapis lazuli_; (2nd) with the blue colour obtained by
pulverising this stone, and finally with the artificial imitation of
this stone or of ultramarine. The classical passage is in Theophrastus
(_On Stones_, § 55). This author distinguishes between the natural
(αὐτοφυής) and the artificial (σκευαστός) _kyanos_. That by the first
_lapis lazuli_ is intended appears from an another passage (§ 39),
where the gold dust distinctive of the _lapis lazuli_ is cited as the
peculiarity of the natural _kyanos_.... Theophrastus continues—“There
are three kinds of kyanos, the Egyptian, the Scythian, and the Cyprian.
The best for the darker colour is the Egyptian, for the lighter, the
Scythian. The Egyptian is artificially prepared, and those that write
about the kings tell us which king first, to imitate natural kyanos,
melted the prepared kyanos (Κυάνος χυτός), and they allege that, among
other things, from Phœnicia came a tribute of kyanos, partly natural
and partly burnt (τοῦ μὲν ἀπυροῦ τοῦ δὲ πεπυρωμένου).”’
Helbig goes on to identify the unfired kyanos with the copper ore of
Cyprus—the blue carbonate which the Phœnicians brought to the
Pharaohs, and which was the main source of copper for the Eastern
Mediterranean.[17]
At Mycenæ itself little glass has been found—some minute tubular
beads, decomposed externally but with a core of blue glass (pronounced
by Landerer to contain lead and cobalt), and a few beads of clear
glass. In the bee-hive tombs of Attica, especially at Spata, were found
a number of small objects of glass, cast, says M. Tsountas, in moulds
of granite and basalt which have been discovered on the spot. Indeed in
all these tombs, next to the beads, the commonest examples of glass are
the little rosettes and plaques cast in a mould with a design in low
relief; these rosettes are often pierced with holes and were probably
sewn on to the dresses of the women. The surface, and sometimes the
whole body, is decomposed, presenting a white silvery glimmer, and this
appearance Landerer considers to be characteristic of the presence of
lead in the glass. At Vaphio we hear of fragments of glass ‘goblets’
being found, decorated with spirals of black, chestnut, and yellow
(Tsountas and Manatt, _The Mycenæan Age_, 1897). If these are to be
identified with our chevron vases, it is, as far as I know, the only
mention of their occurrence on the mainland of Greece at this time.
But it is from the Greco-Phœnician tombs of Cyprus and Rhodes that the
greatest quantity of this primitive glass (chiefly in the form of
_unguentaria_) has been obtained; again from Greco-Etruscan tombs in
Tuscany, from what may be called Greco-Oscan tombs in Southern Italy,
and even from Greco-Scythian tombs in Southern Russia—from, in fact,
nearly all the lands visited by Phœnician traders. How widely spread
was the acquaintance with these little vases we may infer from the
imitations of the chevron pattern on coloured pottery found in Melos. A
similar decoration has been found on Lydian pottery from tumuli near
Sardis, and even, it is claimed, upon prehistoric pottery brought from
the Nilghery Hills in Southern India.
These little vases now take characteristic Greek shapes. The columnar
kohl-pots are replaced by alabastra, very similar in form. Even more
common in later tombs are the little _amphoræ_, sometimes pointed at
the base, at others ending in a rounded knob; a jug-shaped form like
the Greek _oinochoe_ is also common. In some cases—in specimens of
Egyptian origin very frequently—the surface of the glass is entirely
unchanged. But when the decay of the surface has once set in, we
generally find that the decomposition has eaten deeply into the
substance of the glass (see above, p. 16). In such cases it often
happens that the blue colour has been entirely removed, and the vase
has assumed the appearance of a dull, whitish pottery.
I will now briefly mention a few abnormal types of decoration. On some
little amphoræ from Southern Italy the chevrons are of a manganese
purple on a white translucent ground—this colour appears never to be
combined with the more frequent blues and yellows. I have already noted
that the use of red is very rare; where it appears, the technique of
the vase appears to be different—the surface has probably been ground
or turned on a lathe. A beautiful alabastron in the Slade collection,
with red ground decorated with turquoise and yellow chevrons, should be
specially noticed. (See also Pl II, 2.)
How much these little vases were valued appears from the stands of gold
(decorated with applied spirals of an early type) on which they were
sometimes placed in the tombs. M. Reinach mentions some instances from
Crimean tombs, where chevron vases of the usual type have been found
attached by a fine chain of gold to the bracelet worn by the deceased
(Tolstoi and Kondakof, _Antiquités de la Russie Méridionale_, 1891).
The little bottles that we see in the hand of the recumbent effigy on
Phœnician sarcophagi, are probably to be identified with our glass
vases; we have an instance of this on the well-known female figure in
the Palermo Museum (figured by Perrot and Chipiez and elsewhere).
LATER SURVIVALS OF THE PRIMITIVE GLASS
There are in the British Museum some little glass amphoræ from Camirus
and Ialysus in Rhodes, and others from Amathia and Salamis in Cyprus,
on which the chevron bands are not incorporated into the glass base,
but laid on the surface as in later enamelled ware. The chevrons in
such cases cannot have been ‘dragged’ by the old ingenious plan; they
must have been elaborately applied one by one. We may recognise
probably in such cases the survival of an old method of decoration
after the technical process by which it was produced had been lost. The
glass itself, too, is of a late type—transparent and hastily formed. I
think that the date of some of these ‘scamped’ chevron vases may be
later than is generally thought.
The beads and other objects of _verroterie_ from the Cyprian and
Rhodian tombs differ much from those found in the Mycenæan sepulchres
of Continental Greece. There are in the British Museum some large beads
of perfectly clear glass from Ialysus in Rhodes[18]; these are probably
of Asiatic origin. We must also range with this ‘primitive’ glass the
large beads—if beads they are to be called—in the form of satyr-like
masks, so widely spread through Mediterranean lands (Pl. XV., 1), as
well as those of irregular shape that so closely resemble the old
‘bull’s eye’ sweetmeats, built up of interlacing bands of various
colours. Indeed the technique of the manufacture of these beads was
probably very similar to that of those handmade ‘lollipops,’ for in
spite of its lower fusing-point, and of its solubility in water, there
are many points of resemblance between sugar in a state of semi-fusion
and glass in a similar condition.[19]
What little I have to say of the rare specimens of glass of a more
advanced type found in Greek tombs, I will postpone to the next chapter.
THE PRIMITIVE GLASS OF WESTERN ASIA
The civilisation of the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley reaches
probably as far back as that of the Egyptians. Its influence has
extended at various times from the Balkan peninsula to the borders of
India, including Persia on the one hand, and on the other the kingdoms
that grew up in Syria, and among the primitive races of Asia Minor.
Now, if we are to judge by the contents of our museums, all these
lands, at least up to the time of the conquest of Alexander, may be
passed over as of no concern to the writer of a history of glass. If,
however, we allow ourselves to be influenced by less material evidence,
we shall find that a good case may be made out for the early existence
of glass in these lands. But before discussing this evidence, I would
impress upon the reader how much the survival of objects of glass
depends upon the habit of burying in tombs, and their discovery upon
the systematic exploration of these tombs. Compared with Egypt, how
little has been accomplished in this way in these Western Asiatic
countries!
I have already noticed the coincidence of the sudden development of the
manufacture of glass in Egypt with the first close contact, at the
period of the Eighteenth Dynasty, of the Egyptians with races already
affected by Babylonian culture; and we must remember that the glass
made within a few years of this first contact was never surpassed in
later times. Nor must we overlook the classical tradition concerning
the invention of glass handed down to us by Pliny and other writers.
According to this tradition, glass was first made by Phœnician traders
on the coast of Syria. Here, at any rate, the three great requisites
for the manufacture were at hand—a pure silica in the convenient form
of a white sand, alkali either from the ashes of marine plants or from
adjacent salt deposits, and finally, an abundant supply of fuel. And
yet, for the present, all that can be said is that we must associate
all the early glass that has been found in other countries than Egypt
with the trading peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean, whether
Pelasgians, Carians, or Phœnicians. To a similar source we may refer
the rare glass beads found in tombs of the bronze period in Western
Europe, as well perhaps as the scanty specimens of glass that have come
from Assyria and Persia. To these last we will now turn.
Of glass of undoubted Assyrian origin, by far the most important
example known to us is the little barrel-shaped vase with stunted
handles found so many years ago by the late Sir Henry Layard in the
ruins of Kouyunjik. This little vessel, after many vicissitudes, has
found its way into the British Museum. It is three and a quarter inches
in height, and is formed of a glass that is perfectly white and nearly
transparent; it still remains, indeed, our earliest example of such
glass. The date is fixed to the latter part of the seventh century
B.C., by an inscription cut in cuneiform characters containing the name
of Sargon, together with his titles as king of Assyria; on it is also
engraved the figure of a lion. Layard speaks of this vase as being
shaped and hollowed on a turner’s lathe after being ‘_blown in one
solid piece_’ (_Nineveh and Babylon_, 1853)—a curious expression for
one who interested himself so much in the manufacture of glass! We may,
perhaps, regard it as having been carved like an object of rock crystal
out of a solid piece of glass. We know of nothing like it from Egypt,
but then the Egyptians had no love for transparent, colourless
materials; from an early time, as we have seen, they had covered their
beads of rock crystal with a blue glaze (cf. p. 20). Here I may add
that the other specimens of glass discovered by Layard at Nineveh have
no claim to so early a date. Among them, however, were two bowls of
great interest, formed of a _vetro di trina_ or ‘lace glass,’ with very
fine meshes. These are now in the Assyrian Department of the British
Museum. Some almost identical bowls from the late Greek tombs of
Canosa, in Southern Italy, may be seen in the Glass-Room in the same
Museum.
The Assyrians and the Babylonians before them were, we know, from an
early date past masters in the manufacture of coloured glazes. The
turquoise blue glaze of their pottery and wall tiles has been handed
down in these lands apparently without a break, through Persian and
Sassanian times to their later Arab masters. In the Louvre are some
slabs of a translucent glass of a fine turquoise tint, about three
inches square, and three-quarters of an inch in thickness, which were
found in Babylonia, associated apparently with objects of great age.
Such masses of glass paste were perhaps manufactured as articles of
commerce to be employed afterwards in the preparation of glazes.[20]
Apart from these examples, the glass brought from Western Asia is of
the usual later Phœnician or Roman type—‘lachrymatories’ and bowls
mostly of greenish glass. It is not till we come to Sassanian times
that we can find any distinctive features, and the rare specimens
dating from that period will best be treated in a later chapter along
with the contemporary Byzantine glass. I may mention finally that there
are one or two passages in our Greek classics that may point to the use
of glass by the Persians in the fifth century B.C. For instance, among
other hardships suffered by the Athenian embassy to the great king—so
we are told ironically by Aristophanes in his _Acharnians_—they were
forced to drink from vessels of gold and from _cups of glass_, or, may
be, of rock crystal (ἐξ ὑαλίνων ἐκπωμάτων).
We know of no glass other than that of Roman type from the Bible lands,
using that expression in the narrower sense, nor in the whole
literature of the Hebrews is there, as far as I know, any definite
reference to glass. The word _Zechuchoth_, which occurs in a passage of
Job (xxviii. 17), is translated in the Vulgate by _vitrum_, but like
the Greek ὕαλος, it may as well refer to rock crystal, or any other
hard transparent substance. There is, however, a passage in Jeremiah
(ii. 22) which is really of more interest to us. It begins, ‘For though
thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap.’ From this passage
we learn at least that the natron of the salt lakes was in early days
applied to practical ends. This was one step to its application to the
manufacture of glass. Since then the soap-boiler has often been the
ally of the glass-maker.
I have thought it well to bring together these few facts and theories
bearing upon the early knowledge and use of glass in Western Asia, for
could its early existence in these lands be once definitely
established, we should be better able to fill up a gap in our history,
and it would perhaps be then possible to solve that obscure
problem—_When and where was the great step taken and the blowing-tube
first made use of for the production of a vesicle or paraison of glass?_
At the present day, in some of the villages around Hebron, glass is
still made by very primitive processes. Thence come the many-coloured
bangles of glass, dear to the Arab women of Palestine and Egypt; some
of these have found their way into collections of Egyptian antiquities,
so closely do they resemble the old wares. This glass is carried by
Arab and Jewish pedlars as far, it is said, as the Soudan. Here,
indeed, we have an industry that may well be regarded as a survival
from very early days.[21] On the other hand, some two thousand years
ago, as we learn from the evidence of the tombs, blown glass of an
advanced type, colourless and transparent, was a common article in
daily use, not only on the Syrian coast, but at Nazareth and other
Galilean towns (see below, Chap. IV.); and yet, as far as I know, there
is not a single allusion to glass or glass-making in any of our four
Gospels.[22]