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,