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164
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. GEMS.
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bear witness to the high degree which this art had reached amongst this people in Italy.
The Etruscans, however, used glass to imitate engraved agates, which they set in seal rings.
The
Egyptians continued for many centuries this Tyrrhenian art, and sent
out great quantities of terracotta ornaments covered with a
vitrification, which was coloured either blue, greenish, or white. They
are principally "margherite," little idols, amulets, and scarabaei of
rough design ; and it is strange to remark that some, of very similar
design, have been found in the Tyrrhenian tombs.
In
the days of Ptolemy the Egyptians made many elegant pieces of work,
with very thin small sticks of varied-coloured glass, cemented together
by a softer glass, almost always blue, the whole so disposed as to
represent a given design.
The
Greeks and Romans also cultivated this art. Pliny often laments the
difficulty experienced in Rome of discerning true, from imitation glass
gems, and mentions a sort of crystal "which was used in making cups (escaria vasa), another entirely dark red, called hœma-tinum, and
others perfect imitations of agate, lapis-lazuli, and sapphires."* The
Greco-Pomani fragments now found are of a thousand different kinds, and
it would be tedious to describe them ; some of them resemble the modern
glasses of Murano.
In
the third century, A.D., Egypt was already celebrated above all
countries for the manufacture of its * Nat. Hist. xxxii. xxvi. 67.
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