as known to the Egyptiaiis. 115 



amused themselves by stringing them for ornamental purposes, 

 as at the present day. 



The principal use to which glass was applied by the Egyp- 

 tians, besides the beads of fancy work already noticed, was for 

 the manufacture of bottles, vases, and other utensils ;* wine 

 was frequently brought to table in a bottle, or handed to a 

 guest in a cupf of this material, and a body was sometimes 

 buried in a glass coffin.J Occasionally a granite sarcophagus 

 was covered with a coating of vitrified matter, usually of a deep 

 green colour, which displayed, by its transparency, the sculp- 

 tures or hieroglyphic legends engraved upon the stone ; a pro- 

 cess well understood by the Egyptians, and the same they em- 

 ployed in many of the blue figures of pottery and stone, com- 

 monly found in their tombs ; the stone, in one case, being co- 

 vered with a composition capable of vitrifying, and then ex- 

 posed to a certain degree of heat, until properly melted and 

 diffused over the surface, and in the other, dipped into a mix- 

 ture, which was vitrified in the same manner. 



Like the Romans, they used glass for mosaic work, and 

 pieces of various colours were employed in fancy ornaments, 

 in the figures of deities, in sacred emblems, and in the different 

 objects for which inlaid work was particularly adapted, the 

 quality then used being generally of an opaque kind. In 

 some of these vitrified compositions, the colours have a bril- 

 liancy which is truly surprising ; the blues which are given by 

 copper are vivid and beautifully clear ; and one of the reds, 

 which is probably derived from minium, has all the intense- 

 ness of rosso antico with the brightness of the glassy material 

 in which it is found ; thus combining the qualities of a rich 

 enamel. 



Many of the cups discovered at Thebes, present a tasteful 

 arrangement of various hues, and evince the great skill of the 



• The lamps mentioned by Herodotus (ii. 62.), at the festival of lamps at 

 Sais, were probably glass. Vide infra, p. 122. 



t In Rome the use of glass vases superseded that of gold and silver. Plin. 

 xxxvi. 26. " Usus ad potandum argenti metalli et auri pepulit (vitrum)." 



X Alexander the Great was said to have been buried in a glass coffin at 

 Alexandria. 



h2 



