The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire. George Rawlinson
opaque glass is comparatively rare, and possesses but little beauty. It was rendered opaque in various ways. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez found that in a statue of Serapis, which they analysed, the glass was mixed with bronze in the proportions of ten to three. An opaque material of a handsome red colour was thus produced, which was heavy and exceedingly hard.845
The methods pursued by the Phoenician glass-manufacturers were probably much the same as those which are still employed for the production of similar objects, and involved the use of similar implements, as the blowpipe, the lathe, and the graver. The materials having been procured, they were fused together in a crucible or melting-pot by the heat of a powerful furnace. A blowpipe was then introduced into the viscous mass, a portion of which readily attached itself to the implement, and so much glass was withdrawn as was deemed sufficient for the object which it was designed to manufacture. The blower then set to work, and blew hard into the pipe until the glass at its lower extremity began to expand and gradually took a pear-shaped form, the material partially coolling and hardening, but still retaining a good deal of softness and pliability. While in this condition, it was detached from the pipe, and modelled with pincers or with the hand into the shape required, after which it was polished, and perhaps sometimes cut by means of the turning-lathe. Sand and emery were the chief polishers, and by their help a surface was produced, with which little fault could be found, being smooth, uniform, and brilliant. Thus the vessel was formed, and if no further ornament was required, the manufacture was complete—a jug, vase, alabastron, amphora, was produced, either transparent or of a single uniform tint, which might be white, blue, brown, green, &c., according to the particular oxide which had been thrown, with the silica and alkali, into the crucible. Generally, however, the manufacturer was not content with so simple a product: he aimed not merely at utility, but at beauty, and proceeded to adorn the work of his hands—whatever it was—with patterns which were for the most part in good taste and highly pleasing. These patterns he first scratched on the outer surface of the vessel with a graving tool; then, when he had made his depressions deep enough, he took threads of coloured glass, and having filled up with the threads the depressions which he had made, he subjected the vessel once more to such a heat that the threads were fused, and attached themselves to the ground on which they had been laid. In melting they would generally more than fill the cavities, overflowing them, and protruding from them, whence it was for the most part necessary to repeat the polishing process, and to bring by means of abrasion the entire surface once more into uniformity. There are cases where this has been incompletely done and where the patterns project; there are others where the threads have never thoroughly melted into the ground, and where in the course of time they have partially detached themselves from it; but in general the fusion and subsequent polishing have been all that could be wished, and the patterns are perfectly level with the ground and seem one with it.846
The running of liquid glass into moulds, so common nowadays, does not seem to have been practised by the Phoenicians, perhaps because their furnaces were not sufficiently hot to produce complete liquefaction. But—if this was so—the pressure of the viscous material into moulds cannot have been unknown, since we have evidence of the existence of moulds,847 and there are cases where several specimens of an object have evidently issued from a single matrix.848 Beads, cylinders, pendants, scarabs, amulets, were probably, all of them, made in this way, sometimes in translucent, sometimes in semi-opaque glass, as perhaps were also the plaques which have been already described.
The ceramic art of the Phoenicians is not very remarkable. Phoenicia Proper is deficient in clay of a superior character, and it was probably a very ordinary and coarse kind of pottery that the Phoenician merchants of early times exported regularly in their trading voyages, both inside and outside the Mediterranean. We hear of their carrying this cheap earthenware northwards to the Cassiterides or Scilly Islands,849 and southwards to the isle of Cerné, which is probably Arguin, on the West African coast;850 nor can we doubt that they supplied it also to the uncivilised races of the Mediterranean—the Illyrians, Ligurians, Sicels, Sards, Corsicans, Spaniards, Libyans. But the fragile nature of the material, and its slight value, have caused its entire disappearance in the course of centuries, unless in the shape of small fragments; nor are these fragments readily distinguishable from those whose origin is different. Phoenicia Proper has furnished no earthen vessels, either whole or in pieces, that can be assigned to a time earlier than the Greco-Roman period,851 nor have any such vessels been found hitherto on Phoenician sites either in Sardinia, or in Corsica, or in Spain, or Africa, or Sicily, or Malta, or Gozzo. The only places that have hitherto furnished earthen vases or other vessels presumably Phoenician are Jerusalem, Camirus in Rhodes, and Cyprus; and it is from the specimens found at these sites that we must form our estimate of the Phoenician pottery.
The earliest specimens are of a moderately good clay, unglazed. They are regular in shape, being made by the help of a wheel, and for the most part not inelegant, though they cannot be said to possess any remarkable beauty. Many are without ornament of any kind, being apparently mere jars, used for the storing away of oil or wine; they have sometimes painted or scratched upon them, in Phoenician characters, the name of the maker or owner. A few rise somewhat above the ordinary level, having handles of some elegance, and being painted with designs and patterns, generally of a geometrical character. A vase about six inches high, found at Jerusalem, has, between horizontal bands, a series of geometric patterns, squares, octagons, lozenges, triangles, pleasingly arranged, and painted in brown upon a ground which is of a dull grey. At the top are two rude handles, between which runs a line of zig-zag, while at the bottom is a sort of stand or base. The shape is heavy and inelegant.852
Another vase of a similar character to this, but superior in many respects, was found by General Di Cesnola at Dali (Idalium), and is figured in his “Cyprus."853 This vase has the shape of an urn, and is ornamented with horizontal bands, except towards the middle, where it has its greatest diameter, and exhibits a series of geometric designs. In the centre is a lozenge, divided into four smaller lozenges by a St. Andrew’s cross; other compartments are triangular, and are filled with a chequer of black and white, resembling the squares of a chessboard. Beyond, on either side, are vertical bands, diversified with a lozenge ornament. Two hands succeed, of a shape that is thought to have “a certain elegance."854 There is a rim, which might receive a cover, at top, and at bottom a short pedestal. The height of the vase is about thirteen inches.
In many of the Cyprian vases having a geometric decoration, the figures are not painted on the surface but impressed or incised. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez regard this form of ornamentation as the earliest; but the beauty and finish of several vases on which it occurs is against the supposition. There is scarcely to be found, even in the range of Greek art, a more elegant form than that of the jug in black clay brought by General Di Cesnola from Alambra and figured both in his “Cyprus"855 and in the “Histoire de l’Art."856 Yet its ornamentation is incised. If, then, incised patterning preceded painted in Phoenicia, at any rate it held its ground after painting was introduced, and continued in vogue even to the time when Greek taste had largely influenced Phoenician art of every description.
The finest Phoenician efforts in ceramic art resemble either the best Egyptian or the best Greek. As the art advanced, the advantage of a rich glaze was appreciated, and specimens which seem to be Phoenician have all the delicacy and beauty of the best Egyptian faïence. A cup found at Idalium, plain on the outside, is covered