DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4856#0030
24
with the name of Tutankhamen, that is to say, about 1400 b.c. But too much reliance
must not be placed on trifling ornaments of this sort, made from moulds which may
have been in use for centuries. Even the Greeks, with their prolific imagination, used
archaic moulds for their terracottas down to comparatively late times. There is in the
Museum a glass vase which bears the name of Thothmes III., and which has always been
regarded as a contemporary product. Between it and Prof. Petrie's glass there must have
been a long lapse of time, if we are to judge by the extraordinary difference of technique,
and yet his date allows very little time for so momentous a change. The Thothmes
vase is so obviously rude and archaic in shape and fabric that no one can question its being
contemporaneous, whereas the glass vases from Gurob and ours from Enkomi represent very
nearly the culmination of this peculiar industry, as seen in our glass vases from Cameiros
of the 7th and 6th centuries b.c. It is often made a reproach to Egyptian art that it had
stood for centuries quite stationary, and if the accepted chronology of the country is right,
this reproach would seem to be justifiable. But in any case the glass vases of which we
are speaking are not by anyone supposed to be the work of Egyptian craftsmen. They
are the product of foreigners, and if these foreigners were the same who made the
porcelain rhytons already discussed, we must credit them with an artistic impulse
which would have abhorred anything stationary.
The most interesting of the glass vases from Enkomi are those which take the form of
a pomegranate (Fig. 63, Nos. 1052, 1053, 1056). They are interesting because in their
shape they are directly copied from nature, and so far may be compared with the
naturalism of the porcelain horse's head already noticed. The shape is true to nature,
even at the expense of a most inconvenient mouth for the vase, which in time, however,
became modified into an ordinary lip. The home of the pomegranate, in ancient as
in modern times, is Syria,1 and the home of the glass industry, it is believed, was also
Syria, or more exactly Phoenicia. There was a Phoenician settlement at Memphis in
Egypt.2 Phoenicians abounded in Cyprus, which island was near their own coast.
Very possibly it had been those same Phoenicians who manufactured the glass ware of
Gurob and Enkomi at one and the same time. The question is, What was that time ?
For the present we must either accept Prof. Petrie's date (about 1400 b.c), based on
scanty observations collected from the poor remains of a foreign settlement in Egypt, or fall
back on the ordinary method of comparing the glass vessels of Gurob with those from Greek
tombs of the 7th century b.c. or later, and then allowing a reasonable interval of time for the
slight changes of shape or fabric which may have intervened. In matters of chronology it is
no new thing for the Egyptians to instruct the Greeks, as we know from the pages of
Herodotus. And who can forget the beautiful passage of Plato in the " Critias," where the
manuscript of an Egyptian priest is cited describing the condition of Athens 9,000 years
before Plato?
1 Hehn, Kulturpjlanzen, p. 209, speaks of its having been transplanted to Carthage from Canaan,
seiner Heimat." Apparently it had spread early into Asia Minor.
2 Herodotus, II. 112.
with the name of Tutankhamen, that is to say, about 1400 b.c. But too much reliance
must not be placed on trifling ornaments of this sort, made from moulds which may
have been in use for centuries. Even the Greeks, with their prolific imagination, used
archaic moulds for their terracottas down to comparatively late times. There is in the
Museum a glass vase which bears the name of Thothmes III., and which has always been
regarded as a contemporary product. Between it and Prof. Petrie's glass there must have
been a long lapse of time, if we are to judge by the extraordinary difference of technique,
and yet his date allows very little time for so momentous a change. The Thothmes
vase is so obviously rude and archaic in shape and fabric that no one can question its being
contemporaneous, whereas the glass vases from Gurob and ours from Enkomi represent very
nearly the culmination of this peculiar industry, as seen in our glass vases from Cameiros
of the 7th and 6th centuries b.c. It is often made a reproach to Egyptian art that it had
stood for centuries quite stationary, and if the accepted chronology of the country is right,
this reproach would seem to be justifiable. But in any case the glass vases of which we
are speaking are not by anyone supposed to be the work of Egyptian craftsmen. They
are the product of foreigners, and if these foreigners were the same who made the
porcelain rhytons already discussed, we must credit them with an artistic impulse
which would have abhorred anything stationary.
The most interesting of the glass vases from Enkomi are those which take the form of
a pomegranate (Fig. 63, Nos. 1052, 1053, 1056). They are interesting because in their
shape they are directly copied from nature, and so far may be compared with the
naturalism of the porcelain horse's head already noticed. The shape is true to nature,
even at the expense of a most inconvenient mouth for the vase, which in time, however,
became modified into an ordinary lip. The home of the pomegranate, in ancient as
in modern times, is Syria,1 and the home of the glass industry, it is believed, was also
Syria, or more exactly Phoenicia. There was a Phoenician settlement at Memphis in
Egypt.2 Phoenicians abounded in Cyprus, which island was near their own coast.
Very possibly it had been those same Phoenicians who manufactured the glass ware of
Gurob and Enkomi at one and the same time. The question is, What was that time ?
For the present we must either accept Prof. Petrie's date (about 1400 b.c), based on
scanty observations collected from the poor remains of a foreign settlement in Egypt, or fall
back on the ordinary method of comparing the glass vessels of Gurob with those from Greek
tombs of the 7th century b.c. or later, and then allowing a reasonable interval of time for the
slight changes of shape or fabric which may have intervened. In matters of chronology it is
no new thing for the Egyptians to instruct the Greeks, as we know from the pages of
Herodotus. And who can forget the beautiful passage of Plato in the " Critias," where the
manuscript of an Egyptian priest is cited describing the condition of Athens 9,000 years
before Plato?
1 Hehn, Kulturpjlanzen, p. 209, speaks of its having been transplanted to Carthage from Canaan,
seiner Heimat." Apparently it had spread early into Asia Minor.
2 Herodotus, II. 112.