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Alabastrites

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ALABASTRITES.
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alabastra were made in all materials—pottery, glass, the precious metals ; but this stone was above all the most in . use. Henoe St. Mark's ¢Üâáóôñïí ìíñïõ íÜñäïí ôôéóôéêÀì* and Horace's " Nardi parvus Onyx," meant one and the same thing, the latter retaining the ancient designation of the substance. The slender necks of these jars were readily broken off to come at their contents (perfumed oils), having been closely sealed down by the maker on leaving his laboratory. To their reputation for preserv­ing the perfume unimpaired for a great length of time being perfectly deserved, a convincing testimony is offered by certain large alabastra from Pompeii (now in the Museo Borbonico) still diffusing a strong odour of their ancient contents : whereat the Emperor Nicholas on his visit "riraase sorpreso," as the custode tells you; and not without reason. The inferior Onyx-marble chiefly used for this purpose was quarried, says Pliny, near Thebes in Egypt, and Damascus. Yast numbers of Canopi, or sacred jars, of a squat form, with the head of a mummy for a lid, still exist in this Egyptian stone, which is identical in quality with the Derbyshire Alabaster so much worked up now into cheap ornaments for the plebeian mantle-piece.
This common Alabaster certainly deserves the name of "Finger-nail stone " better than the more precious substance, the stratified Agate, that has usurped its original title, for it often exhibits layers, slightly curved, of flesh colour and opaque white arranged like the shades in the human
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