| Fig. 11.—Assyrian glazed and enamelled pottery. |
During the Sargonide period in Assyria (7th century b.c.) we find a polychrome faience (colours usually white and brown) obviously of Egyptian origin. It was used, not for vases, but architectonically for friezes, ornamental bosses, &c. Its origin may be found in Egypt under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Egyptian influence extended to the Tigris, and Babylonia had regular diplomatic relations with Egypt In Asia this polychrome decoration in glazes continued to be used long after it had ceased to be made in the country of its origin; the enamelled brick decoration of Persepolis is the descendant of the glazed inlay decorations of Tel el-Amarna, Tel el-Yahudiya and Kuyunjik. In the Sargonide period blue glazed vases occur (see fig. 11) which are probably of Egyptian origin or are Phoenician imitations of Egyptian faience.
Characteristic of the Parthian period is a coarse green glazed pottery of which the slipper-shaped coffins, of the time were made (British Museum, Nos. 1645-1647) (21). This glaze possibly contains a small amount of lead; in appearance it is not unlike the contemporary translucent blue glaze of Egypt. The Egyptian glaze certainly spread into western Asia, and we find the last specimens of it in the tiles from the destroyed city of Rhagae in Persia, which may be as late as the 13th century a.d. The lead glazes, unknown in Egypt till the late Roman period, may be of Asiatic origin, though this important point is by no means clear.
References.—(1) Petrie-Quibell, Ballas and Nagada (date erroneous); (2) Jacques de Morgan, L’ Âge de la pierre et des métaux; (3) Petrie, Diospolis Parva, frontispiece (also for “sequence-dates” of pottery); (4) Garstang, Mahâsna and Bêt Khallâf, pls. xxix.—xxxii.; (5) Petrie, Illahûn, pl. xii. (corr. by V. Bissing in (14)); (6) V. Bissing, Catalogue générale du musée de Caire, “Die Fayencegefässe”; (7) Petrie, Abydos, ii., frontispiece; (8) Henry Wallis, Egyptian Ceramic Art (Macgregor Collection); (9) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, British Museum, p. 252 ff.; (10) Petrie, Tel-el-Amarna; (11) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, p. 261; (12) Petrie, Nagâda, pl. xxviii.; (13) Petrie, Illahûn, pls. xx., xxi.; (14) V. Bissing, Strena Helbigiana, p. 20 ff.; (15) Garstang, El Arábah, pls. xviii.-xxi., xxviii., xxix.; (16) Hall, Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 143 ff. ibid. figs. 29, 30, 69; (17) Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, pl. viii.; (18) Petrie, Tell-el-Hesy, pl. v.; (19) Welch, Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. vi.; (20) de Morgan, Délégation en Perse, viii. (1905); (21) Brit. Mus.: Guide to Babylonian and Assyrian Room.
(H. R. H.)
Greek, Etruscan and Roman
Greek. Study of Greek Vases.—It is not so many years since an account of Greek pottery would naturally have followed chronologically the history of Egyptian pottery with little overlapping; but recent discoveries have reversed all such ideas, and, while up to the end of the 19th century the earliest remains to be traced on Greek soil could be assigned at the furthest to the period 2500-2000 b.c., it is now possible not only to show that at that period technical processes were highly developed, but even to trace a continuous development of Greek pottery from the Neolithic age. This result has been mainly brought about by Dr Arthur Evans’s researches at Cnossus in Crete, but traces of similar phenomena are not wanting in other parts of Greece. Whether the race which produced this pottery can strictly be called Greek may be open to question, but at all events the ware is the independent product of a people inhabiting in prehistoric times the region afterwards known as Greece; its connexion with the pottery of the historic period can now be clearly traced, and in its advanced technical character and the genuinely artistic appearance of its decoration even this early ware proclaims itself as inspired by a similar genius.
The study of Greek vases has thus received an additional impetus from the light that it throws on the early civilization of the country, and its value for the student of ethnology. But it has always appealed strongly to the archaeologist and in some degree also to the artist or connoisseur, to the former from its importance as a contribution to the history of Greek art, mythology and antiquities, to the latter from its beauty of form and decoration. Attention was first redirected to the painted vases at the end of the 17th century, though for a long time they served as little more than an adjunct to the cabinet of the amateur or a pleasing souvenir for the traveller; but even during the 18th century it dawned on the minds of students that they were of more than merely artistic importance, and attention was devoted to the elucidation of their subjects, and attempts made to arrive at a chronological classification. Two facts must, however, be borne in mind: firstly, that down to the middle of the 19th century the great majority of painted vases had been found only in Italy; secondly, that these vases were mostly of the later and more florid styles, which, if artistically advanced, are now known to represent a decadent phase of Greek art.
From the former cause arose the notion that these vases were the product not of Greek but of Etruscan artists, and so the term “Etruscan vase” arose and passed into the languages of Europe, surviving even at this day in popular speech in spite of a century of refutation. Meanwhile, the study of the subjects depicted on the vases passed through the successive stages of allegorical, historical and mystical interpretation, until a century and more of painstaking study led to the more rational principles of modern archaeologists.
| Fig. 12.—Jug from Cyprus of Oriental style, 10 in. high |
| Fig. 13.—Pottery from Cyprus with geometrical ornament. |