WONDERS OF ANCIENT GLASSBLOWING.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 50, 27 June 1905, Page 2

WONDERS OF ANCIENT GLASSBLOWING.

Tie glass blowers of ancient Thebes are . known to have been -as proficient- in that particnlar art /as is the most scientific craftsman of the same ibrade. of the present day, after a lapse of forty centuries :of so^ .-: called ' progress.' They were well acquainted with the art of staining, glass, and are/known to have produced that commodity in great profusion and perfection. " Rossellini gives an illustration of a piece of sjbained glass known . to be four thousand years old which displayed artistic taste of high order, both in tint and design.: In this case /the color is Struck through the yitrifiedistructure, and he mentions designs struck-^entirely in pieees^from one-half to three-quarters of an inch thick, and the color berner-perfectlyin-corporated with the structare of "the piece,"" and exactly the same on both the obVerse and reverse sides;.- '//..■ ,'.' . "... / ■/ : "\./ .'://:; The priests of Ptah at Memphis were adepts in the glass -maker's art, and not only; did they have factories for manuf actnring the common crystal variety, but they hadlearned the . vitrifyiDg of the different colors, and the imitating of precio as stones to f erfection. Their imitations of the amethyst and of the various other. colored gems were so// true. to nature that even now, after they have lain in the desert sands from two . thousand to" four thousand years, it takes an expert ; to .distinguish the genuine article from the spurious. It has been showtf that," besides being experts in glass-making and glass-coloring^ they used the diamond in cutting and engraving glass. the British Museum/there is a beautiful piece of stained glass, with an engraved emblazonment of the monarch Thothmes 111., who lived three thousand f our hundred years ago. / -