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.