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Description of objects in glass |
Translucent coloured glass was also largely produced by the Phoenicians for beads and other ornaments, and also for the imitation of gems. The huge emerald of which Herodotus speaks, as "shining with great brilliancy at night" in the temple of Melkarth at Tyre, was probably a glass cylinder, into which a lamb was introduced by the priests. In Phoenician times the pretended stone is quite as often a glass paste as a real gem, and the case is the same with the scarabs so largely used as seals. In Phoenician necklaces, glass beads alternate frequently with real agates, onyxes, and crystals; while sometimes glass in various shapes is the only material employed. A necklace found at Tharros in Sardinia, and now in the collection of the Louvre, which is believed to be of Phoenician manufacture, is composed of above forty beads, two cylinders, four pendants representing heads of bulls, and one representing the face of a man, all of glass. Another, found by M. Renan in Phoenicia itself, is made up of glass beads imitating pearls, intermixed with beads of cornaline and agate.[ Another class of glass ornaments consists of small flat /plaques/ or plates, pierced with a number of fine holes, which appear to have been sewn upon garments. These are usually patterned, sometimes with spirals, sometimes with rosettes, occasionally, though rarely, with figures. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez represent one in their great work upon ancient art, where almost the entire field is occupied by a winged griffin, standing upright on its two hind legs, and crowned with a striped cap, or turban. Phoenician opaque glass is comparatively rare, and possesses but little beauty. It was rendered opaque in various ways. Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez found that in a statue of Serapis, which they analysed, the glass was mixed with bronze in the proportions of ten to three. An opaque material of a handsome red colour was thus produced, which was heavy and exceedingly hard. |
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