f red contains 30 per cent of bronze, and becomes coated with
verdegris if exposed to damp. All this chemistry was empirical, and
acquired by instinct. Finding the necessary elements at hand, or being
supplied with them from a distance, they made use of them at hazard, and
without being too certain of obtaining the effects they sought. Many of
their most harmonious combinations were due to accident, and they could not
reproduce them at will. The masses which they obtained by these
unscientific means were nevertheless of very considerable dimensions. The
classic authors tell of stelae, sarcophagi, and columns made in one piece.
Ordinarily, however, glass was used only for small objects, and, above all,
for counterfeiting precious stones. However cheaply they may have been sold
in the Egyptian market, these small objects were not accessible to all the
world. The glass-workers imitated the emerald, jasper, lapis lazuli, and
carnelian to such perfection that even now we are sometimes embarrassed to
distinguish the real stones from the false. The glass was pressed into
moulds made of stone or limestone cut to the forms required, as beads,
discs, rings, pendants, rods, and plaques covered with figures of men and
animals, gods and goddesses. Eyes and eyebrows for the faces of statues in
stone or bronze were likewise made of glass, as also bracelets. Glass was
inserted into the hollows of incised hieroglyphs, and hieroglyphs were also
cut out in glass. In this manner, whole inscriptions were composed, and let
into wood, stone, or metal. The two mummy-cases which enclosed the body of
Netemt, mother of the Pharaoh Herhor Seamen, are decorated in this style.
Except the headdress of the effigy and some minor details, these cases are
gilded all over; the texts and the principal part of the ornamentation
being formed of glass enamels, which stand out in brilliant contrast with
the dead gold ground. Many Fayum mummies were coated with plaster or
stucco, the texts and religious designs, which are generally painted, being
formed of glass enamels incrusted upon the surface of the plaster. Some of
the largest subjects are made of pieces of glass joined together and
retouched with the chisel, in imitation of bas-relief. Thus the face,
hands, and feet of the goddess Ma are done in turquoise blue, her headdress
in dark blue, her feather in alternate stripes of blue and yellow, and her
raiment in deep red. Upon a wooden shrine recently discovered