8 Ancient Jewelry. 



that is to say, seven divisions fitting into eight, like a well- 

 made modern snuff-box. In both these bracelets there are two 

 joints, and they are placed just so wide apart as to admit of 

 the passage of the wrist, when the pin was again passed into the 

 open joint, and the bracelet, or rather armlet, thus became per- 

 manently fastened. 



There remain still two points to be considered ; the manu- 

 facture of gold plate and the process of inlaying, of which 

 latter art both the last described earring and the bracelet are 

 good examples. It is difficult to Understand how the gold plate, 

 of which the Egyptians made so great a use, can have been 

 produced, without the aid of some machinery of the nature of 

 the flatting-mill of the present day. It is certainly possible 

 to hammer fine gold into a thin sheet, but this can only be 

 done by placing it between vellum, or some similar substance, 

 and subjecting it to heavy blows by the hour. On the 

 naked anvil it would be scarcely possible to produce an even 

 surface, and then only by means of finely-polished steel ham- 

 mers, which the ancients can scarcely have possessed. Yet 

 it is easier to believe that they hammered their gold into plate 

 on the anvil than that they possessed so complicated as machine 

 as a rolling or flatting-mill. 



As to the inlaying, Dr. Birch tells us, speaking of the 

 relics of Queen Aah-hept, that " they are encrusted in a kind 

 of cloisonne of opaque glass of blue and red colour, and are not 

 enamelled. This latter class of work not being known prior to 

 the Eoman Empire." Again : " the principal substances used 

 for this purpose by the Egyptians were lapis-lazuli, root of 

 emerald, or green felspar, jasper, obsidian, and opaque glasses 

 imitating them, and the delicate blue of the turquoise." 



The bracelet before us appears to have been inlaid mainly 

 with lapis-lazuli, alternating with thin plates of gold, also 

 inlaid, and altogether representing that peculiar zigzag which 

 was employed by the Egyptians to represent running water. 

 The present drawing has been taken from the side, instead of 

 the front, of the bracelet, in order to represent this more fully. 

 The question now arises, by what means did the ancients cut , 

 their precious stones and coloured glasses into the required 

 shapes ? We know they were expert engravers on stone, but 

 it is hardly to be supposed that they had invented the lathe, 

 and engraved their figures and inscription by means of the 

 points and small disks of the modern seal- engraver. Yet 

 something of this kind they must have done ; for, assuming 

 that their seal-devices and writings were cut by small chisels, 

 or by friction with the points of harder stones, which is pos- 

 sible, but extremely laborious, how could they have shaped 

 their seal-stones for setting or for inscription without a lapi- 



