Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt eBook

Gaston Maspero
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 305 pages of information about Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt.

Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt eBook

Gaston Maspero
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 305 pages of information about Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt.
limestone cut to the forms required, as beads, discs, rings, pendants, rods, and plaques covered with figures of men and animals, gods and goddesses.  Eyes and eyebrows for the faces of statues in stone or bronze were likewise made of glass, as also bracelets.  Glass was inserted into the hollows of incised hieroglyphs, and hieroglyphs were also cut out in glass.  In this manner, whole inscriptions were composed, and let into wood, stone, or metal.  The two mummy-cases which enclosed the body of Netemt, mother of the Pharaoh Herhor Seamen, are decorated in this style.  Except the headdress of the effigy and some minor details, these cases are gilded all over; the texts and the principal part of the ornamentation being formed of glass enamels, which stand out in brilliant contrast with the dead gold ground.  Many Fayum mummies were coated with plaster or stucco, the texts and religious designs, which are generally painted, being formed of glass enamels incrusted upon the surface of the plaster.  Some of the largest subjects are made of pieces of glass joined together and retouched with the chisel, in imitation of bas-relief.  Thus the face, hands, and feet of the goddess Ma are done in turquoise blue, her headdress in dark blue, her feather in alternate stripes of blue and yellow, and her raiment in deep red.  Upon a wooden shrine recently discovered in the neighbourhood of Daphnae,[58] and upon a fragment of mummy-case in the Museum of Turin, the hieroglyphic forms of many-coloured glass are inlaid upon the sombre ground of the wood, the general effect being inconceivably rich and brilliant.  Glass filigrees, engraved glass, cut glass, soldered glass, glass imitations of wood, of straw, and of string, were all known to the Egyptians of old.  I have under my hand at this present moment a square rod formed of innumerable threads of coloured glass fused into one solid body, which gives the royal oval of one of the Amenemhats at the part where it is cut through.  The design is carried through the whole length of the rod, and wherever that rod may be cut, the royal oval reappears.[59] One glass case in the Gizeh Museum is entirely stocked with small objects in coloured glass.  Here we see an ape on all fours, smelling some large fruit which lies upon the ground; yonder, a woman’s head, front face, upon a white or green ground surrounded by a red border.  Most of the plaques represent only rosettes, stars, and single flowers or posies.  One of the smallest represents a black-and-white Apis walking, the work being so delicate that it loses none of its effect under the magnifying glass.  The greater number of these objects date from, and after, the first Saite dynasty; but excavations in Thebes and Tell el Amarna have proved that the manufacture of coloured glass prevailed in Egypt earlier than the tenth century before our era.  At Kurnet Murraee and Sheikh Abd el Gurneh, there have been found, not only amulets for the use of the dead, such as colonnettes, hearts,
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Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.