A far more numerous class were the potters; and all the processes of mixing the clay, and of turning, baking, and polishing the vases, are represented in the tombs of Thebes and Beni Hassan.

They frequently kneaded the clay with their feet, and after it had been properly worked up, they formed it into a mass of convenient size with the hand, and placed it on the wheel, which was of very simple construction, and generally turned with the hand. The various forms of the vases were made out by the finger during their revolution; the handles, if they had any, were afterwards affixed to them; and the devices and other ornamental parts were traced with a wooden or metal instrument, previous to their being baked. They were then suffered to dry, and for this purpose were placed on planks of wood; they were afterwards arranged with great care in trays, and carried, by means of the usual yoke, borne on men's shoulders, to the oven.

Many of the vases, bottles, and pans of ordinary quality were very similar to those made in Egypt at the present day, as we see from the representations in the paintings, and from those found in the tombs, or in the ruins of old towns; and judging from the number of Coptic words applied to the different kinds, their names were as varied as their forms. Coptos and its vicinity were always noted for this manufacture; the clays found there were peculiarly suited for porous vases to cool water; and their qualities are fully manifested, at the present day, in the goolleh or bardak bottles, of the neighbourhood, made at the modern towns of Kéneh and Ballás.

That the forms of the modern goollehs are borrowed from those of an ancient time is evident, from the fragments found amidst the mounds of ancient towns and villages, as well as from the many preserved entire; and a local tradition asserts that the modern manufacture is borrowed from, and has succeeded without interruption to, that of former days.

It is impossible to fix the period of the invention of the potter's wheel, and the assertion of Pliny, who attributes it to Corobus the Athenian, is disproved by the evidence of the Egyptian

Potters' earthenware vases.

9

Beni Hassan.

a, e, i, p, the wheels on which the clay was put. Fig. 1 forms the inside and lip of the cup as it turns on the wheel a. b c d are cups already made. Fig. 2 forms the outside of the cup, indenting it with the hand at the base, preparatory to its being taken off. Fig. 3 has just taken off the cup from the clay l. Fig. 5 forms a round slab of clay with his two hands. Fig. 6 stirs and prepares the oven q. At s is the fire which rises through the long narrow tube or chimney of the oven, upon the top of which the cups are placed to bake, as in v. Fig. 7 hands the cup to the baker 8. Fig. 9 carries away the baked cups from the oven.

Fig. 4 puts on a fresh piece of clay.

monuments, which prove it was known previous to the arrival of Joseph, and consequently long before the foundation of Athens.

But Pliny's chapter of inventions abounds with errors of this kind, and serves to show how commonly the Greeks adopted the discoveries of other nations, particularly of Egypt and Phoenicia, and claimed them as their own: even the art of cutting stones is attributed to Cadmus of Thebes; and Thales of Miletus is said to have enlightened the Egyptians, under whom he had long been studying, by teaching them to measure the altitude of a pyramid, or other body, by its shadow, at the late period of 600 B.c. But we cannot suppose that the Greeks taught their instructors a discovery, of which men so skilful in astronomy and mathematics could not have been ignorant; and however superior they afterwards became in all branches of science, they were in their infancy long after the decline of Egypt.

The Egyptians displayed much taste in their gold, silver, porcelain, and glass vases, but when made of earthenware, for ordinary purposes, they were frequently devoid of elegance, and scarcely superior to those of England before the taste of Wedgewood substituted the graceful forms of Greek models, for some of the unseemly productions of our old potteries. Though the clay of Upper Egypt was particularly suited to porous bottles, it could not be obtained of a sufficiently fine quality for the manufacture of vases like those of Greece and Italy; in Egypt, too, good taste did not extend to all classes, as in Greece; and vases used for fetching water from a well, or from the Nile, were of a very ordinary kind, far inferior to those carried by the Athenian women to the fountain of Kallirhoë.

The Greeks, it is true, were indebted to Egypt for much useful knowledge, and for many early hints in art, but they speedily surpassed their instructors; and in nothing, perhaps, is this more strikingly manifested than in the productions of the potter.

Carpenters and cabinet-makers were a very numerous class of workmen and their occupations form one of the most important subjects in the paintings which represent the Egyptian trades.

Egypt produced little wood; and with the exception of the date and dom palms, the sycamore, tamarisk, and acacias, few

trees of native growth afforded timber either for building, or for ornamental purposes.

The principal uses of the date and dôm trees have been already mentioned.

*

For coffins, boxes, tables, doors, and other objects, which required large and thick planks, for idols and wooden statues, the sycamore was principally employed; and from the quantity discovered in the tombs alone, it is evident that the tree was cultivated to a great extent. It had the additional recommendation of bearing a fruit, to which the Egyptians were very partial; and a religious prejudice claimed for it, and the Persea, the name and rank of sacred fruit-trees. It is even now looked upon with favour; and when a foreigner is leaving the country, his Egyptian friends ask him if he has ever eaten any sycamore-figs, and on his answering in the affirmative, express their delight at the prospect of his return, saying," whoever has eaten sycamore-figs is sure to come back to Egypt."

The tamarisk was preferred for the handles of tools, wooden hoes, and other things requiring a hard and compact wood; and of the acacia were made the planks and masts of boats, the handles of offensive weapons of war, and various articles of furniture. Large groves of this tree were cultivated in many parts of Egypt; especially in the vicinity of Memphis and Abydus; and besides its timber, the acacia was highly valued for the pods it produced, so useful for tanning, and for the gum, which exudes from the trunk and branches, now known under the name of gum Arabic. This tree is not less prized by the modern Egyptians, who have retained its name as well as its uses; sont being applied to this species of acacia, both in Arabic and the ancient Egyptian language.

Besides the Sont, or Acacia (Mimosa) Nilotica, the Sellem, Sumr, Tulh, Fitneh, Lebbekh, and other acacias, which grew in Egypt, were also adapted to various purposes; and some instances are met with of the wood of the Egleeg † or Balanites Ægyptiaca, and of different desert trees having been used by the Egyptian carpenters.

For ornamental purposes, and sometimes even for coffins, doors, and boxes, foreign woods were employed; deal and cedar were imported from Syria; and part of the contributions, exacted from the conquered tribes of Ethiopia, and Asia, consisted in ebony and other rare woods, which were annually brought by the chiefs, deputed to present their country's tribute to the Egyptian Pharaohs.

Boxes, chairs, tables, sofas, and other pieces of furniture were frequently made of ebony, inlaid with ivory; sycamore and acacia were veneered with thin layers, or ornamented with carved devices, of rare wood, applied, or let into them; and a fondness for this display suggested to the Egyptians the art of painting common boards, to imitate foreign varieties, so generally adopted in other countries at the present day.

The colours were usually applied on a thin coating of stucco, laid smoothly upon the previously prepared wood, and the various knots and grains, painted upon this ground, indicated the quality of the wood they intended to counterfeit.

The usual tools* of the carpenter were the axe, adze, hand-saw, chisels of various kinds (which were struck with a wooden mallet), the drill, and two sorts of planes (one resembling a chisel, the other apparently of stone, acting as a rasp on the surface of the wood, which was afterwards polished by a smooth body, probably also of stonet); and these with the ruler‡, plummet, and right angles, a leather bag containing nails, the hone, and the horn of oil, constituted the principal, and perhaps the only, implements he used.

Some of the furniture of their rooms, the work of the cabinetmaker, I have already noticed]], as well as the perfection to which they had arrived in the construction of the chairs and ottomans of their saloons; nor can I omit the mention of the art of dovetailing, already practised in the earliest Pharaonic ages, or the mode of applying two planks together in the same plane, by means of broad pins, or tongues, of hard wood. Of the former numerous

*Woodcut 395.

+ Woodcuts 89, fig. 3, 392. Woodcut 396, e. § Woodcut 390, part 2, fig. v; and 396, f. In vol. i., pp. 59 to 72, and 158 to 164.