The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

This shaving of the head among the Egyptians is given as a reason by Herodotus for the remarkable hardness of the Egyptian sculls, as compared with those of other people. The most singular custom of the Egyptians was that of tying a false beard upon the chin, which was plaited and shaped according to the rank of the person. The beards on the figures of the gods were distinguished by the turning up of the ends. No man ventured to assume the beard of a deity. But after death, kings were accorded the honor of having their statues thus distinguished.

The art of painting common boards to imitate costly varieties, now so often employed, was practised by the ancient Egyptians. Boxes, chairs, tables, sofas, and other pieces of furniture were frequently made of ebony inlaid with ivory, and articles of sycamore and acacia were ornamented with rare woods.

The Egyptians displayed much taste in their gold, silver, porcelain, and glass vases. Glass was known from the earliest times, and glass-blowing was employed by them twenty-five hundred years ago. It is also stated that their dead were sometimes enclosed in glass coffins, or a crystal sarcophagus was made by covering the granite with a coating of vitrified matter, usually of a deep green color, which by its transparency allowed the hieroglyphics engraved upon the stone beneath to be plainly visible.

Emeralds, rubies, amethysts, and other expensive gems were most successfully imitated by the jewellers of Thebes. Pliny states that glass-cutting was known to the ancients, and that the diamond was employed for that purpose, as at present, even if they were ignorant of the art of cutting the diamond itself with its own dust. “Diamonds,” says Pliny, “are eagerly sought by lapidaries who set them in iron handles, for they have the power of penetrating anything, however hard it may be.”

The art of embroidery was commonly practised in Egypt, and gold and silver threads were used for this purpose. The loom was also employed by them, both in weaving linen, cotton, and wool, and also for the production of very rich stuffs, in which various colors were worked in innumerable patterns by the loom.

The Egyptians were also famed for their manufacture of paper, which was in the form of parchments made from the plant papyrus, which grew in the marshy regions of the Nile in great profusion. Leather was also prepared by them with great skill for various purposes, and the knife employed by them in the process, between three and four thousand years ago, is precisely similar to that used by modern curriers. Fullers, potters, carpenters, and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen. The Egyptians were skilled in the working of metals; and gold, silver, brass, tin, iron, and lead were known in those days.

The art of embalming the dead was practised by the Egyptians with a perfection never since equalled.

Egyptian paintings were very primitive, and their sculptures were more remarkable for huge grotesqueness than any perfection of art, as their artists were limited to such a conventional mode of drawing. After the accession of the Ptolemies, Greek art became well known in Egypt, but their artists still continued to adhere to the Egyptian models prescribed.

The Egyptians appear to have possessed some secret for hardening or tempering bronze, with which we are totally ignorant; for the wonderful skill with which they engraved their granite obelisks with hieroglyphics, for which purpose they used implements of bronze, cannot be equalled by any process in modern times.

The walls and ceilings of the houses of the Egyptians of high rank were richly painted, as well as their tombs. The ceilings were laid out in compartments, each having peculiar pattern and border. The favorite forms were the lotus, the square, the diamond, and the succession of scrolls.