Introduction of Glazes into China 129 



sets forth the opinion that Pliny opens the description of the "mineral" 

 by speaking of its size and thickness, then passes on to the description 

 of the surface, its brightness, its colors and their play, and winds up 

 with remarks on the properties of the mass. It would be impossible 

 to unite more absurdities in a single sentence. The dimensions, accord- 

 ing to Thiersch, are exactly stated by the terms amplitudo and cras- 

 situdo; and the murra was a mineral, and, as Thiersch insists, fluor- 

 spar. This mineral, consequently, was quarried in regular blocks of 

 constantly equal dimensions, — a really astounding feat ! Fluor-spar 

 or fluorite crystallizes in the isometric system, commonly in simple 

 cubes; this fact could not have escaped Pliny, had he ever had an 

 opportunity of examining this mineral, which is not at all mentioned 

 by him nor by any other ancient writer. 1 There is, moreover, no 

 evidence that fluor-spar occurs in Persia, where the murrine vessels 

 were made. There is no evidence that fluor-spar vessels were ever 

 turned out in Persia, and, above all, no such vessels have ever come 

 to light among classical antiquities. They did not survive, because 

 they never existed, save in the imagination of nineteenth century 

 writers. 2 But does our Pliny, indeed, speak of any mineral? There 



1 See this volume, p. 62. 



1 Thiersch himself is not the originator of this fancy. He attributes (p. 495) 

 the germ of the idea to an English scholar signing himself "A. M." in the Classical 

 Journal of 1810 (p. 472), who, after having seen vases carved from fluor-spar of 

 Derbyshire in his time, persuaded himself that the murrine cups should have been 

 composed of the same material, — an opinion presented without an iota of evidence. 

 According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Vol. X, p. 578), F. Corsi, the eminent 

 Italian antiquary, held that fluor-spar was the material of the famous murrine 

 vases; Corsi, however, followed Thiersch. H. Blumner (Technologie, Vol. Ill, 

 p. 276), reviewing the various opinions, observes that this theory has recently been 

 strongly contested; he himself believes in the mineral character of the vessels, for 

 which weak arguments are given. It is astounding with what high degree of tenacity 

 the unfounded opinion of fluor-spar vessels could hold its position in the face of the 

 bare fact that no such vessels ever existed in ancient Persia, Egypt, or in classical 

 antiquity, and have never come to light. Guhl and Koner (Leben der Griechen 

 und Rdmer, p. 699, 6th ed., 1893) adhere to this explanation, and, while admitting 

 that we do not possess vessels which can positively be identified with murrines, 

 point to a semi-transparent bowl found in Tyrol in 1837, which should probably be 

 one. This supposition, however, conflicts with the fact that the murrines were 

 not at all transparent, as shown by a distich of Martial (iv, 86): Nos bibimus vitro; 

 tu murra, Pontice: quare! prodat perspicuus ne duo vina calix. In the Century 

 Dictionary it is justly remarked under "murra," "The principal objection to this 

 theory is that no fragments of fluor-spar vases have been found in Rome or its 

 vicinity." M. Bauer (Edelsteinkunde, 2d ed., p. 653) sensibly states that there 

 is no positive and sufficient evidence for the allegation that the murrines were of 

 fluor-spar; but neither is there any more evidence for his own opinion, that they 

 may have been of chalcedony quarried in Ujjain in India. E. Babelon (in Darem- 

 berg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquitSs grecques et romaines, Vol. II, p. 1466) 

 says, "Nous ne savons pas surement ce qu'dtait cette matiere precieuse qui servart 



