ONE OF THE WORLD’S OLDEST MONUMENTS: THE GREAT STEP PYRAMID AT SAKKARA
This pyramid was built by King Neterkhet of the third dynasty, about 4900 B.C.
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THE BEGINNING OF THE ALPHABET
The signary which was used in various early ages is here shown, as it has been gathered from examples of over 100 signs found in Egypt. Closely related to these are the early alphabets of Karia and Spain, the latter alphabet containing over 30 signs. It is from this prehistoric signary that the present Roman alphabet has been gradually selected during past ages.
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GLAZING AND GLASS. The very ancient art of glazing, already used in two colours under Mena, did not take any new form till the eighteenth dynasty, when it was greatly varied by new colours and new applications. Large objects, five feet high, were covered with a single fusing of glaze; minute ornaments, for stitching on garments, blazed with the brightest red, green, blue, or yellow; while whole inscriptions were executed in coloured glaze hieroglyphs, inlaid in the white stone walls. Glass, however, was not made separately until about the time of Tahutmes III., 1500 B.C. There is no earlier example of true glass, nor any representation of working glass. All the truly Egyptian glass was wrought pasty, and never blown.
Blown vases belong entirely to the Roman age and later times. The large blown glass lamps of Arab age, covered with fusible enamel designs, are highly skilled pieces of work. The uses of glass to the Egyptian were mainly for beads, for coloured inlays in wood of shrines or coffins, and for variegated glass vases. The beads were made by winding a thread of glass on a wire; the vases, likewise, were made by modelling on an infusible core, held on a mandrel, and winding coloured glass threads on the body. The inlays were often of one colour, generally deep blue imitating lazuli; but often mosaics were used, made of a bundle of glass threads fused together, drawn out, and then cut off in slices. Such are all of Greek or Roman age. An important use of glass in Roman and Arab times was for weights, and for stamps impressed on glass bottle measures, inscribed with the names of the ruler and the maker.
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