Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/344

 3o6 A History of Art in Chald^ea and Assyria. there the blue has turned green under the action of time. One of the vases reproduced above (Fig. 180) belongs to this class. Vases of the same kind, covered with a rather thick layer of blue and yellow enamel, have been found among the rubbish in the Birs-Nimroud at Babylon, 1 but it is difficult to fix an exact date for them with any confidence. On the other hand, it is generally agreed that the large earthenware coffins brought from the funerary mounds of Lower Chaldaea are very much later. In style the small figures with which they are decorated resemble the medals and rock sculptures of the Parthians and Sassanids. 2 The art of making glass, which dates in Egypt at least as far back as the first Theban dynasty, 3 was invented in Mesopotamia, or imported into it, at a very early period. No. glass objects have been found in the oldest Chaldaean tombs, but they abound in the ruins of the Assyrian palaces. A great number of small glass bottles, resembling the Greek alabastron or aryballos in shape, 4 have been dug up ; many of them have been made brilliantly iridescent by their long sojourn in the earth. 5 A vase found by Layard at Nimroud, and engraved with Sargon's name just below the neck, is generally quoted as the oldest known example of transparent glass (see Fig. 190). 6 It has been blown solid, and then the inside cut out by means of an instrument which has left easily-visible traces of its passage ; this instrument was no doubt mounted on a lathe. Sir H. Layard believes, however, that many of the glass objects he found are much older, and date from the very beginning of the Assyrian monarchy, but their material is opaque and coloured. 7 Some bracelets of black glass, which were dug up at Kouyundjik, prove that common jewelry was sometimes 1 Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, 2nd edition, 1873, p. 104. 2 The British Museum possesses some fine examples of these coffins; they were transported to England by Loftus, who had some difficulty in bringing them home intact. See Loftus, Travels and Researches, &c, p. 204 ; Layard, Discoveries, pp. 558-561 ; and Birch, History of Ancient Pottery f pp. 105-107. In the upper parts of the mounds at Warka and Niffer, where these slipper-shaped coffins were packed in thousands, fragments of glazed earthenware, plates and vases, were also found ; they seemed to date from the same period. 3 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 375. 4 Botta, Monument de Ninive, vol. v. p. 173. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 389-391. 5 On this subject see a note by Sir David Brewster (?), appended to Layard, Discoveries, pp. 674-676. 6 Layard, Discoveries, p. 197. 7 Layard, Nineveh, vol. i. p, 421 ; Discoveries, p. 197.