38,010) we have
the king's name traced in the manganese glaze on (or rather in) the
blue-white glaze of the vase itself, for the second glaze is inlaid.
This style of decoration in manganese black or purple on copper-blue
continued till the end of the "New Empire" shortly before the XXVIth
(Saite) Dynasty. It was not usual actually to inlay the decoration
before the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The light blue glaze was used
well into the time of the XIIth Dynasty (British Museum, No. 36,346),
but was then displaced by a new tint, a brilliant turquoise blue, on
which the black decoration shows up in sharper contrast than before.
This blue, and a somewhat duller, greyer or greener tint was used at the
time for small figures, beads and vases, as well as for the glaze of
scarabs, which, however, were usually of stone-schist or steatite --not
faience. The characteristically Egyptian technique of glazed stone
begins about this period, and not only steatite or schist was employed
(on account of its softness), but a remarkably brilliant effect was
obtained by glazing hard shining white quartzite with the wonderfully
delicate XIIth Dynasty blue. A fragment of a statuette plinth of this
beautiful material was obtained during the excavation of the XIth
Dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahri in 1904 (British Museum, No. 40,948).
Vessels of diorite and other hard stones are also found coated with the
blue glaze. A good specimen of the finest XIIth Dynasty blue-glazed
faience is the small vase of King Senwosri I. (2400 B.C.) in the Cairo
Museum (No. 3666) (6). The blue-glazed hippopotami of this period, with
the reeds and water-plants in purplish black upon their bodies to
indicate their habitat, are well known. Fine specimens of these are in
the collection of the Rev. Wm. MacGregor at Tamworth (8).

The blue glaze of the XIIth Dynasty deepened in colour under the XIIIth,
to which the fine blue bowls with designs (in the manganese black) of
fish and lotus plants belong (8) (British Museum, Nos. 4790, &c.). The
finest specimens of XVIIIth Dynasty blue ware have come from Deir
el-Bahri, in the neighbourhood of which place there may have been a
factory for the manufacture of votive bowls, cups, beads, &c., of this
fine faience, for dedication by pilgrims in the temple of Hathor (good
collection in British Museum). Towards the end of this dynasty
polychrome glazes came into fashion; white, light and dark blue, violet,
purple, red, bright yellow