as known to the Egyptians. 107 



is of the same quality as glass, and that, therefore, the mode of 

 fusing, and the proper proportions of the ingredients for mak- 

 ing glass, were already known to them ; and we can positively 

 state, that 200 years after, or about 1500 B.C., they made orna- 

 ments of glass ; a bead, bearing a king's name who lived at 

 that period, having been found at Thebes, by my friend Cap- 

 tain Henvey, R. N., the specific gravity of which, 2.535, is 

 precisely the same as of crown-glass now manufactured in 

 England. 



— -I % — /=..^ 



No. 349. a. 



Figs. 1. 2. Glass bottles represented in the sculptures ofThebes. 



3. Captain Henvey's glass bead. About the real size. 



4. The hieroglyphics on the bead, containing the name of a monarch 



who lived 1500 b.c. 



Many glass bottles, and objects of various forms, have been 

 met with in the tombs of Upper and Lower Egypt, some un- 

 questionably of very remote antiquity, though not readily as- 

 cribed to any fixed epoch, owing to the absence of royal names, 

 indicative of their date ; and glass vases, if we may trust to the 

 representations in the Theban paintings, are frequently shewn 

 to have been used for holding wine, at least as early as Exodus, 

 1 490 years before our era. 



Till within a few years, prejudice forbade the belief that the 

 ancients were acquainted with the manufacture of glass, and 



