A number of glass bowls, vases, and bottles from Nimroud may be seen in the British Museum, the earliest specimen of which is an Assyrian transparent glass vase with two handles, and is inscribed with the name of the monarch Sargon (B.C. 722-705). This is supposed to be the oldest known specimen of transparent glass (Fig. 294).
Fig. 295.
Phœnician Alabastron.
Many long-shaped little bottles—alabastron—of pale greenish, and others of brilliant colours, with slightly varied shapes, have been dug up from the ruins of Assyrian palaces, and have been found in most of the ancient tombs in Greece, Italy, and in the islands of Cyprus, Sardinia, and Rhodes. These little bottles have been made by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, and Greeks, and their shape, being consecrated by use, remained unchanged for many centuries; they were portable objects of barter, as glass beads also were with the Phœnicians, who distributed them in trade to all parts of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean (Figs. 295, 296).
Common forms of the Phœnician glass bottles were small vessels in the shapes of heads, and of dates, grapes, and other fruits, which were blown in moulds. These vessels probably came from the great workshops of Tyre and Sidon; some of them bear the names of their makers—Eugenes, Ennion, and “Artas the Sidonian.”
The shapes of many of these vessels are decidedly Greek, and if not Greek in manufacture, have been copied from the shapes of Greek pottery.
The colours used were yellow, turquoise, and white on blue, green, or brown, and a common arrangement of these was in zigzag or wavy alternating lines; in other examples the surface was reeded, as may be seen in the alabastron, Fig. 295.
Fig. 296.—Necklace of Glass and Gold, Phœnician. (B.M.)
Ancient Roman glass is of great variety in colour, and many specimens show the highest technical skill combined with great artistic beauty. The lovely iridescent effect on Roman and other antique glass is due to the chemical changes of the surface decomposition, and in other instances to the minute flaking of the glass, which reflects the light at various angles, and thus producing the prismatic hues.