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Naxium, Emery

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NAX1UM.
247
polished by means of Naxium and whetstones :" after this, when he comes to treat (xxxvi. 47) of the whetstones used for tools, he repeats the same observations as to the Naxian, and the supe­riority of the Armenian. In xviii. 67, § 5, he mentions the ancient Italian mowers as knowing no other whetstones than those brought from Crete, and places beyond the sea. For these oil was necessary, and therefore the mower moved along with a horn-full of oil tied to his leg. But Italy afterwards supplied whetstones which required water alone, and acted like a file upon the scythe.
For marble-sawing the best sand was imported from Ethiopia, the next quality from India, " peteretur etiam in Indos quo margaritas quoque peti severis moribus indignum erat " (xxxvi. 9). This must have been Emery-powder ; and the fact of its being sought in Ethiopia is a very good reason for supposing its use known to the old Egyptians, and confirms Sir G. Wilkinson's explanation of the manner in which their primitive sculptors contrived to master the most obdurate materials.
Those primeval monuments of gem-engraving, the Assyrian cylinders in Loadstone, sufficiently explain Pliny's expression of filing a gem, the designs having evidently been cut into the cir­cumference by rubbing with the edge of a fragment of Emery. It is in a more advanced period of Assyrian art that we perceive the neatly turned and regular indentations marking the appli­cation of the drill. The backs also of most really antique intagli of all periods show by the deep furrows upon them, but partially concealed by the lustrous polish subsequently imparted, how the gems had literally been filed into shape by the rubbing with an Emery-stone.
Hence we discover why Armenia should be famous for the production of the best material for this purpose ; it was the source whence the inventors of the art drew their supplies of the indispensable means. As the knowledge of gem-engraving spread from Assyria towards the coast of Asia Minor, the artists carried with them a supply of the Armenian mineral. Theo-phrastus shows that in his days it was still imported from that region into Greece, although the isle of Naxos then as now possessed inexhaustible mines. From the preference given by
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