“The white colour with which the engraved decorations of the Trojan terra-cottas were filled, by means of a pointed instrument, is nothing but pure white clay. In like manner, the painting on the potsherd given above,[70] is made with white clay, and with black clay containing coal. The brilliant red colour of the large two-handled vessels (δέπα ἀμφικύπελλα)[71] is no peculiar colour, but merely oxide of iron, which is a component part of the clay of which the cups were made. Many of the brilliant yellow Trojan vessels, I find, are made of grey clay, and painted over with a mass of yellow clay containing oxide of iron; they were then polished with one of those sharp pieces of diorite which are so frequently met with in Troy, and afterwards burnt.
The large marshes lying before the site of Ἰλιέων κώμη, and discussed in my second memoir, have long since been drained, and thus the estate of Thymbria (formerly Batak) has acquired 240 acres of rich land. As might have been expected, they were not found to contain any hot springs, but only three springs of cold water.
In my twenty-second memoir I have mentioned a Trojan vase, with a row of signs running round it, which I considered to be symbolical, and therefore did not have them specially reproduced by photography. However, as my learned friend Émile Burnouf is of opinion that they form a real inscription in Chinese letters,[72] I give them here according to his drawing.
M. Burnouf explains them as follows:—
and adds: “Les caractères du petit vase ne sont ni grecs ni sanscrits, ni phéniciens, ni, ni, ni—ils sont parfaitement lisibles en chinois!!! Ce vase peut être venu en Troade de l’Asie septentrional, dont tout le Nord était touranien.” Characters similar to those given above frequently occur, more especially upon the perforated terra-cottas in the form of volcanoes and tops.