The most beautiful of the objects in glass produced by the Phoenicians are the translucent or semi-transparent vessels of different kinds, most of them variously coloured, which have been found in Cyprus, at Camirus in Rhodes, and on the Syrian coast, near Beyrout and elsewhere.[838] These comprise small flasks or bottles, from three to six inches long, probably intended to contain perfumes; small jugs (oenochoae) from three inches in height to five inches; vases of about the same size; amphorae pointed at the lower extremity; and other varieties.  They are coloured, generally, either in longitudinal or in horizontal stripes and bands; but the bands often deviate from the straight line into zig-zags, which are always more or less irregular, like the zig-zags of the Norman builders, while sometimes they are deflected into crescents, or other curves, as particularly one resembling a willow-leaf.  The colours are not very vivid, but are pleasing and well-contrasted; they are chiefly five—­white, blue, yellow, green, and a purplish brown.  Red scarcely appears, except in a very pale, pinkish form; and even in this form it is uncommon.  Blue, on the other hand, is greatly affected, being sometimes used in the patterns, often taken for the ground, and occasionally, in two tints, forming both groundwork and ornamentation.[839] It is not often that more than three hues are found on the same vessel, and sometimes the hues employed are only two.  There are instances, however, and very admirable instances, of the employment, on a single vessel, of four hues.[840]

The colours were obtained, commonly, at any rate, from metallic oxides.  The ordinary blue employed is cobalt, though it is suspected that there was an occasional use of copper.  Copper certainly furnished the greens, while manganese gave the brown, which shades off into purple and into black.  The beautiful milky white which forms the ground tint of some vases is believed to have been derived from the oxide of tin, or else from phosphate of chalk.  It is said that the colouring matter of the patterns does not extend through the entire thickness of the glass, but lies only on the outer surface, being a later addition to the vessels as first made.

Translucent coloured glass was also largely produced by the Phoenicians for beads and other ornaments, and also for the imitation of gems.  The huge emerald of which Herodotus speaks,[841] as “shining with great brilliancy at night” in the temple of Melkarth at Tyre, was probably a glass cylinder, into which a lamb was introduced by the priests.  In Phoenician times the pretended stone is quite as often a glass paste as a real gem, and the case is the same with the scarabs so largely used as seals.  In Phoenician necklaces, glass beads alternate frequently with real agates, onyxes, and crystals; while sometimes glass in various shapes is the only material employed.  A necklace found at Tharros in Sardinia, and now in the collection of the Louvre, which is believed to be of Phoenician manufacture, is composed of above forty beads, two cylinders, four pendants representing heads of bulls, and one representing the face of a man, all of glass.[842] Another, found by M. Renan in Phoenicia itself, is made up of glass beads imitating pearls, intermixed with beads of cornaline and agate.[843]