No. 243. Singular instance of a four-wheeled carriage, on the bandages of a mummy, belonging to S. D'Athanasi. CHAPTER VII. Vases of various Kinds. paration for Dinner. Dinner. Figure of a dead Man brought in. - Dancing and Entertainments. Game of Draughts.· Various Games. Ball.- Dwarfs. - Wrestling. — Fighting with Sticks. HAVING Concluded the preceding chapter with the arrival of a party, and the introductory custom of welcoming the guests with refreshments and music, I proceed to describe the vases placed in the apartments for the purpose of ornament, or used on those occasions; which, as I have already observed, were of hard stone, alabaster, glass, ivory, bone, porcelain, bronze, silver, or gold: the lower classes, contented with those of humbler materials, having an inferior kind of glazed pottery, or common earthenware. Many of their ornamental vases, as well as those in common use, present the most elegant forms, which would do honour to the skill of a Greek artist; the Egyptians frequently displaying in these objects of private luxe, the taste of a highly refined people and so strong a resemblance do they bear to the productions of the best epochas of ancient Greece, both in their shape and in the fancy devices which adorn them, that some might even imagine them borrowed from Greek patterns. But they are purely Egyptian, and were universally adopted in the Valley of the Nile, long before the graceful forms we admire were known in Greece: a fact invariably acknowledged by those who are acquainted with the remote age of Egyptian monuments, and the period when the paintings representing them were executed in the tombs, or temples, of the Thebaïd. Some indeed of the most elegant date in the early age of the third Thothmes, a monarch who appears to have lived about the year 1490 before our era, and whom I assume to be the Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus: and we not only admire their forms but the richness of the materials of which they were made, the colours and the hieroglyphics themselves showing them to have been of gold and No. 244. Gold vases of the time of Thothmes III. 1490 B. C. Thebes. silver, or of this last, inlaid with the more precious metal. Those of bronze, alabaster, glass, porcelian, and even of ordinary pottery, were also deserving of admiration, from the beauty of their shapes, the designs which ornamented them, and the superior quality of their materials; and gold and silver cups were often beautifully engraved, and studded with precious stones. Among these we readily distinguish the green emerald, the purple amethyst, and other gems; and when an animal's head adorned their handles, the eyes were frequently composed of them, except when enamel, or some coloured composition, were employed as a substitute. That the Egyptians made great use of precious stones for their vases, and for women's necklaces, rings, bracelets, and other ornamental purposes, is evident from the paintings at Thebes, and from the numerous articles of jewellery discovered in the tombs; they were among the presents brought by the conquered nations tributary to the Egyptians; and their value and nature are indicated by the hieroglyphics accompanying them, as well as by the care with which they are tied up in bags, and secured with a seal. No. 245. Bags, probably containing precious stones, tied up and sealed. Thebes. Many of the bronze vases found at Thebes, and in other parts of Egypt, are of a quality which cannot fail to excite admiration, and prove the skill possessed by the Egyptians in the art of working and compounding metals. We are surprised at the rich sonorous tones they emit on being struck, the fine polish of which they are frequently susceptible, and the high finish given them by the workmen nor are the knives and daggers, made of the same materials, less deserving of notice; the elastic spring they possessed, and even retain to the present day, being such as could only be looked for in a blade of steel. I believe the exact proportions of the copper and alloys, in the different specimens preserved in the museums of Europe, have not yet been ascertained; but it would be curious to know their composition, particularly the interesting dagger of the Berlin collection, which is as remarkable for the elasticity of its blade, as for the neatness and perfection of its finish. This part of the subject, however, properly relates to the working of metals, which I shall |