The Mentor · Glass and Glass-Making · Page 3

was also used to make the curved chevrons and zigzags that decorated a vase or phial.
    The pale tint of green feldspar was much liked, too. The red imitated jasper. Many strange beads have been discovered; one that belongs to Queen Hatasu of the fifteenth dynasty (1450 B.C.) says in hieroglyphs that she was "beloved of the Goddess Hathor."

Phoenician and Cypriote Glass
    The Phoenicians followed Egyptian ideas. They were celebrated for a pure white glass. Phoenicia was also famous for its beads,-- those "aggry" beads, which have been dug up in all countries-- Europe, Asia, India and parts of Africa-- wherever the Phoenicians traded. These beads are opaque and of great variety. Some were used for barter, others were made to please fastidious customers.
    Artistic glass does not seem to have developed in countries where pottery was brought to perfection. In Greece for example, glass was almost neglected. The earliest Greek writer to speak of it is Aristophanes (lived about 450-380 B.C.), who talks of "cups of gold and of glass." Homer does not mention glass.
    Most Greek glass has been dug up in the Greco-Phoenician tombs in the islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, where the Phoenician and Egyptian influences were strong. The glass objects found in Rhodes and Cyprus, dating from about 800 B.C., are chiefly little bottles, rounded or pointed at the base, that resemble the kohl

GLASS MADE IN THE FIRST CENTURY, A.D.

and unguent bottles of the Egyptians. Although there are a few specimens of light green, pale rose, blue with spiral lines and pale buff, and some examples decorated with zigzag, wavy lines incorporated in the glass itself, most of the bottles were of colorless glass, now exquisitely iridescent from age.

Roman Glass
The Romans derived their art from Phoenicia and Egypt. Glass-houses of Sidon and Alexandria supplied the Eternal City long before the days of the luxurious emperors. Factories were in operation in 54 B.C. under Augustus;