nce in the shapes.]

_Western Asia.--Palestine_. The most ancient Palestinian pottery is the
rough "Amorite" ware from Lachish (Tel el-Hesi) which sometimes has wavy
handles like the prehistoric Egyptian (18). Later we find actual
Mycenaean pottery in Philistia (19), an interesting testimony to the
truth of the legend which brings the Philistines from Crete; the fourth
and fifth cities of Lachish (1200-1000 B.C.) show us the first ordinary
Phoenician or Israelite pottery--buff or red lamps and bowls, the latter
with the handles sometimes painted in bistre, and vases showing strong
Egyptian influence; while pottery from Cyprus and elsewhere is found as
in Egypt.

The only remarkable later development of Palestinian pottery is the
Phoenician imitation of Egyptian faience of the Saite period, of which
the characteristics are well known. Some of this may actually have been
made in Egypt.

The course of the potter's art in Mesopotamia and Persia appears to have
run on lines of development parallel with the art in Egypt, for the
country between the Tigris and the Euphrates is rich in good clays, and,
wherever the invention of glass arose, its application to pottery
decoration was certainly developed at an early period in Egypt and in
Mesopotamia.

Two characteristic uses of clay wares must, however, be pointed out,
though they have nothing to do with vase-making.

1. The Babylonian and Assyrian use of clay shaped into tablets,
cylinders and prisms, to produce an imperishable record of the
literature of the time. The cylinders and prisms were thrown on the
potter's wheel and are consequently hollow; the circular form was then
sliced down, and the surface was impressed with cuneiform
inscriptions, the prism, tablet or cylinder being subsequently dried
and fired.

2. The architectural use of glazed bricks and slabs. While the
Egyptians remained content for the most part with the application of
their brilliant alkaline glazes to small and delicately-finished
objects, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed an architecture
decorated with glazed and coloured brickwork. The bricks were of very
open texture, and the ornamental pattern or figure subjects were
obtained by a strong outline in dark-coloured clay which formed a kind
of _cloison_ or boundary, the shallow cells between being filled in
with coloured clays--yellow, red or white--or with coloured glazes of
turquoise, green or blue,