Chapter XVIII
.) and may be dated by the accompanying scarabs of
Psammetichus I. as belonging to the end of the sixth century.
But these are by no means the earliest examples. In the Bronze Age tombs of Cyprus occasional finds have been made of plates of blue porcelain or faïence, with Egyptian designs going back to the eighteenth dynasty[431]; and for several centuries other Egyptian objects in porcelain, or with enamelled glaze, continue to be found in the tombs of Cyprus, Rhodes, and Greece. And there is also a considerable quantity of such wares which is not Egyptian in character, although it may be to some extent imitative, and therefore demands notice. Of this the most remarkable examples are the _rhyta_, or drinking-horns, found at Enkomi in Cyprus, in 1896, and now in the British Museum.[432] The two finest specimens are in the form of a female head surmounted by a cup (Plate X.) and a ram’s head respectively. Although found in tombs with Mycenaean objects, and therefore presumably of early date, the style and modelling are so far advanced—so purely Hellenic—that they may be compared with archaic work of the sixth century B.C. or even later.
In the tombs of Kameiros in Rhodes,[433] along with Egyptian porcelain objects, were found many vases of this ware, of apparently Greek workmanship. This is further implied by the presence in one tomb of a figure of a dolphin with a Greek [[Π]Υ[Θ]ΕΩ [Ε]ΜΙ], “I belong to Pythes.”[434] It is quite conceivable that the Greeks of Rhodes (as of Naukratis: see below) knew and practised Egyptian methods. The finds include small _alabastra_ with friezes of men and animals in relief, and flasks of a compressed globular shape similarly ornamented; also _aryballi_ of various moulded forms, such as animals or helmeted heads (Plate X. fig. 3). The vase in the form of a head seems to be an early Phoenician idea; and this particular type of the helmeted head seems to have been adopted subsequently by Ionian artists in the Clazomenae sarcophagi.[435] Similar vases and figures have been discovered in the tombs of Melos, Corinth, Cervetri, and Vulci, and also in Syria and at Naukratis in Egypt.[436] Others again from the tombs of Kameiros and Vulci take the form of jars of opaque glass ornamented with zigzag patterns in white and dull crimson on a greenish ground.[437] A specimen of somewhat similar ware was found in a Bronze Age tomb at Curium, Cyprus, in 1895,[438] consisting of a tall funnel-shaped beaker of blue and yellow glazed ware with an edging of dark brown (Plate X.). The technique is superior to that of the later examples, and more on a level with that of the porcelain _rhyta_ from Enkomi.
In Greece Proper there are altogether few traces of this enamelled ware, and after the sixth century B.C. it quite disappeared. But some very fine specimens have been found in the tombs of Southern Italy. A jug with delicate ornamentation in blue and white came from Naples, and a similar vase from the same site, but shaped like a _kalathos_ and of a pale green colour, is now in the British Museum. Objects of this ware have also been found on the site of the ancient Tharros in Sardinia. Their glaze was a pale green, like that of the twenty-sixth dynasty wares, and with them was found a scarab of Psammetichus I, which shows them to be contemporaneous with the objects found in the Polledrara tomb. But the strong Phoenician element in Sardinia is sufficient to indicate that these fabrics are all of Egyptian importation.
------------------------------------------------------
PLATE X
[Illustration:
PORCELAIN AND ENAMEL-GLAZED WARES (BRITISH MUSEUM).
4, 6, CYPRIOTE BRONZE AGE; 3, ARCHAIC GREEK (RHODES); 1, 2, 5, GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD. ]
------------------------------------
In the Hellenistic period, when vase-painting had reached its latest stages, the fashion of glazed enamelled ware was revived; its chief centre was Alexandria, which would naturally have carried on the traditions of Egyptian porcelain or faïence. Specimens of glazed ware with reliefs or modelled in various forms have been found at Naukratis and in the Fayûm, including a fine blue porcelain head of a Ptolemaic queen (Plate X.). In a tomb at Tanagra were found a beautiful _askos_ in the form of a duck on which Eros rides, and another porcelain vase,[439] evidently imported from Alexandria, or some other industrial centre of Hellenised Egypt. Porcelain jugs, inscribed with the names of Arsinoe, Berenike, and one of the Ptolemies, have been found at Benghazi in North Africa, at Alexandria, and at Canosa in Southern Italy.[440] They are of blue ware, with reliefs of Greek style attached. Fragments of the same kind dating from the first century B.C. were found at Tarsos in Cilicia,[441] and in the Louvre there are glazed wares covered with yellow or green enamel from Smyrna and Kyme. The British Museum possesses similar vases from Kos and elsewhere, with wreaths and similar patterns in relief (Plate X.), but these are not earlier than the Roman period. Enamelled wares of early Roman date have also been found on the Esquiline, and the ware is common at Pompeii.[442]
It does not appear that the manufacture of these enamelled wares was confined to one spot; they are found all over Asia Minor, Italy, and Gaul, and in other countries bordering on the Mediterranean. It seems probable, however, that there were three principal centres of the fabric, at least in the Roman period. The first of these was in Asia Minor, or the islands along its coasts, whence came the specimens found at Tarsos, in Ionia, and in the islands such as Kos. These are mostly small vases, of metallic form, especially in the treatment of the handles (cf. Plate X., fig. 5), the colour being usually a bluish green, though some examples are more polychromatic. These seem to have been exported to Italy, and _viâ_ Marseilles to Gaul. Next, there are the wares made at Alexandria, of which the vases described above are examples. And, thirdly, there was a Gaulish fabric, which must probably be located at Lezoux in the Auvergne (see