mystic eyes, hippopotami walking erect, and ducks in pairs, done in parti-coloured pastes, blue, red, and yellow, but also vases of a type which we have been accustomed to regard as of Phoenician and Cypriote manufacture.[60] Here, for example, is a little aenochoe, of a light blue semi-opaque glass (fig. 225); the inscription in the name of Thothmes III., the ovals on the neck, and the palm-fronds on the body of the vase being in yellow.  Here again is a lenticular phial, three and a quarter inches in height (fig. 226), the ground colour of a deep ocean blue, admirably pure and intense, upon which a fern-leaf pattern in yellow stands out both boldly and delicately.  A yellow thread runs round the rim, and two little handles of light green are attached to the neck.  A miniature amphora of the same height (fig. 227) is of a dark, semi-transparent olive green.  A zone of blue and yellow zigzags, bounded above and below by yellow bands, encircles the body of the vase at the part of its largest circumference.  The handles are pale green, and the thread round the lip is pale blue.  Princess Nesikhonsu had beside her, in the vault at Deir el Bahari, some glass goblets of similar work.  Seven were in whole colours, light green and blue; four were of black glass spotted with white; one only was decorated with many-coloured fronds arranged in two rows (fig. 228).  The national glass works were therefore in full operation during the time of the great Theban dynasties.  Huge piles of scoriae mixed with slag yet mark the spot where their furnaces were stationed at Tell el Amarna, the Ramesseum, at El Kab, and at the Tell of Eshmuneyn.

[Illustration:  Fig. 229.—­Hippopotamus in blue glaze.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 230.—­Glazed ware from Thebes.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 231.—­Glazed ware from Thebes.]

The Egyptians also enamelled stone.  One half at least of the scarabaei, cylinders, and amulets contained in our museums are of limestone or schist, covered with a coloured glaze.  Doubtless the common clay seemed to them inappropriate to this kind of decoration, for they substituted in its place various sorts of earth—­some white and sandy; another sort brown and fine, which they obtained by the pulverisation of a particular kind of limestone found in the neighbourhood of Keneh, Luxor, and Asuan; and a third sort, reddish in tone, and mixed with powdered sandstone and brick-dust.  These various substances are known by the equally inexact names of Egyptian porcelain and Egyptian faience.  The oldest specimens, which are hardly glazed at all, are coated with an excessively thin slip.  This vitreous matter has, however, generally settled into the hollows of the hieroglyphs or figures, where its lustre stands out in strong contrast with the dead surface of the surrounding parts.  The colour most frequently in use under the ancient dynasties was green; but yellow, red, brown, violet, and blue were not disdained.[61] Blue predominated in the Theban