Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/628

Rh 604 POTTERY [ASSYRIAN. the shape of a human head. On them hieroglyphs are coarsely painted in black or colours (see fig. 6). They contained parts of the viscera of the corpse. The mummies themselves are frequently decked out with pectoral plates, necklaces, and other ornaments, made of clay covered with blue and other coloured enamels. Some of the pectoral plates are very elaborate works of the same class as the figure-reliefs from Tel al-Yahiidiya, richly decorated with inlay of different-coloured pastes and enamels. Ptole- During the Ptolemaic period a quantity of graceful and maic well -executed pottery was period. ma( J e [ n fj ne re( J an( J brown clay, mostly without any painted decoration. Some of the vases are of good form, owing to the influence of Greek taste (see fig. 7) ; others are coarsely decorated with rude painting in blue, green, red, yellow, and brown, either in simple bands or with lotus and ether flower-patterns (see fig. 8). Both the body of the vases and the colours are usually quite devoid of any gloss. The FIG. 7. Egyptian pottery under duller colours are various the Ptolemies, showing Greek earths, ochre, and white chalk, influence in the sha P es - while the bright blues and greens are produced by mixing powdered enamel of the required colour with light-coloured clay, the depth of the tint de- pending on the proportion of the clay or chalk. Certain very gaudy and ugly pots were made to imi-, tate granite and steatite ves- -Egyptian pottery with painted ornament and sham marbling. sel s (see fig. 8). They are of brown clay, rudely dabbed and speckled with brown, red, yellow, and grey colours to represent the markings of the stone ; others are yellow, with grey streaks imitations of marble ; most have a painted white tablet, on which are hieroglyphs in black. The pigments are very shiny in texture, and appear to be unfired. Among the most deli cate and carefully made kinds of Egyptian pottery are the round flat flasks shaped rather like the mediaeval &quot; pil grim-bottle &quot; (see fig. 9). They are sometimes made of blue paste, fine clay coloured with oxide of copper, and are delicately enriched with im pressed ornaments, stamped from a mould, in low relief or slightly incised. The orna ment is often designed like a gold necklace hung round the FlG - 9- Egyptian pottery made bottle; others have tablets of fine blue paste, with inscriptions. The surface is biscuit ; and the flasks range in colour from light turquoise to deep ultramarine, the colour not being superficial but of equal strength all through the paste. Small vases of other forms, made of this same material, also occur, but they are rare. Literature. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians (ed. Birch, 1878) ; Birch, Ancient Pottery, 1873. A large number of works on ancient Egypt have some account of the pottery, but none are specially devoted to the subject. The most valuable contribution to the chronological arrangement of Egyptian pottery is contained in an article by Flinders Petrie, published in the Archaeological Journal for 1883, vol. xl. p. 269. See also Pierrot, Dicli&nnaire d Archeo- lorjie Egypiicnne, 1875 ; De Rouge, Etudes Egyptoloyiqucs, 1880 ; and Mariette, Monuments du Musee. . . a Lmdaq, 1864. SECTION III. ASSYRIAN. But little remains to us of the pottery of the primitive Accadian races of Babylonia and Assyria. It was all extremely simple and undecorated, partly hand-made and partly wheel-made, mostly graceful and natural in form, owing its beauty chiefly to the simple elegance of its shape and the fine material of which it was made, the close-grained light yellow and brown clays in which the country between the Tigris and the Euphrates is so rich. The great city of Babylon &quot;figulis munitam urbem,&quot; as Juvenal (x. 171) calls it was essentially a brick city, and depended for its magnificence to a great extent on such decoration as the potter could supply. Herodotus and Ctesias describe its lofty circuits of brick walls, the two inner walls lined with bricks enamelled in various colours, with figure -subjects, scenes of war and hunting (see BABYLON). The technical methods and enamel pigments used in Assyria and Babylonia were for the most part the same as those used in Egypt ; but the Assyrian potters understood the Use of oxide of lead as a flux to mix both with glazes and enamels, an admixture which, though it to some extent injures the durability of the vitreous surface, enables it to be applied with greater ease, and to less silicious clays, without fear of its cracking off or blistering in the kiln. The ruined palaces of Babylon and Nineveh have supplied Pair great quantities of bricks painted in various colours, some brie! as early as the 12th century B.C. The colours applied are of two distinct classes, (1) thoroughly vitrified enamel*, often coarse and bubbly in texture, and applied in con siderable body, which are mostly brilliant though harmoni ous in tint, with a hard vitreous surface ; (2) earth colours, chiefly ochres in various shades of quiet yellows and browns, owing their colours to different iron oxides and a pure white made of lime. The earth colours are very thinly applied, and have no surface gloss. Paintings executed in this manner were neither so hard nor so durable as those in the vitrified enamels, and were prob ably used mainly for panels of ceilings and the upper parts of walls, which were out of the reach of ordinary wear or injury. In a few paintings both methods are combined. The bricks themselves are of light brown or yellowish clay, with which a considerable quantity of straw was mixed. This was burned out in the firing, and , so cavities were left, making the bricks light and porous. Many of the enamelled bricks are moulded in relief, with simple patterns of leaves, interlacing bands, waves, and the like, and were used to form cornices and running bands above and below the flat friezes or dados painted with human figures. The reliefs are picked out in colours with enamel, white, yellow, deep orange, soft red, brown, green, and blue, the enamel being sometimes nearly one- eighth of an inch thick. A common size for the bricks is 12 to 14 inches long by 6 to 7 wide, and about 4 inches thick. Sometimes two or three courses go to make a single moulded band. The British Museum and the Louvre possess the best specimens of these enamelled architectural features. The finest examples of pictured bricks were found in the great palace at Nimriid ; they appear, judging from the imperfect fragments that remain, to illustrate a victorious expedition by the Assyrians against a foreign nation. The paintings represent long lines of captives, and processions of the conquering Assyrians on foot, on horseback, and in chariots. They are executed- on grounds of different colours dull green, yellow, and blue and show a strong feeling for harmony of colour and great skill in decorative arrangement ; the figures are about 9 inches high. Some complete paint ings were executed on one slab or panel. A fine one,