From the foregoing facts, it results that though the Phœnicians had for many ages a monopoly of the glass-manufacture, they cannot be considered as its inventors. They only made admirable use of the material placed by nature in their hands. The wonderful properties of the sand of the Belus are vaunted not only by Pliny but by Josephus and Tacitus. The glass manufactured by the Phœnicians was purer and clearer than that of Egypt, and consequently more sought after; not only alabastra and amphoriskoi, worthy of mediæval Venetian artists, issued from their workshops, but also false gems of coloured vitreous paste, imitating precious stones so as to be mistaken for them; hence the prosperity and reputation of the manufactures of Tyre and Sidon. Lucian says of the complexion of a beautiful young girl that it is more diaphanous than the glass of Sidon.[98]
This last city was the centre of the Phœnician glass manufacture from the remotest antiquity to the Roman period; but remains of ancient furnaces, glass fragments of various colours, and scoriæ, have been found at Tyre, which attest the existence there also of important glass-works.
A fine glass flask, moulded and decorated with fruit, found at Jerusalem, has been attributed to the age of the independence of Judæa; but it may well be not earlier than the Græco-Roman period, like the ornaments of vitreous paste found in the tombs of the kings by Saulcy. These objects, as well as flakes of greenish glass, found in Palestine, probably came from the workshops of Hebron or Aleppo, which are in activity to the present day, and produce before our eyes vases which imitate the ancient specimens to perfection.
Fig. 232.—Glass vase from Jerusalem. (Louvre.)
The glass-workers of Tyre and Sidon signed their works at the Græco-Roman period, like their colleagues the potters. Those of Sidon added the name of the workshop to their own; the Greek or Latin stamp placed in relief on the thumb-rest or handles had the double advantage of giving the name of the manufacturer and of presenting a rough surface, which made it easier to hold the vase. The best known of the Sidonian glass-workers, Artas, lived in the first century of our era; the productions of his workshops are found with his mark in all the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean.
§ VIII. Bronzes and Ornaments.
One of the most original sides of Phœnician art consists of the manufacture of bronze, silver or gold dishes, on which various subjects in Assyro-Egyptian style are