and pressed feet, 3rd-4th. Glass
mosaic 1st cent.; coarser wall mosaic 2nd cent. Glaze coarse blue, on
thick clumsy bowls and jugs. Red brick buildings as well as mud
brick, coins: billon tetradrachms in 1st cent., almost copper in 2nd,
small copper dumps in 3rd, leaden tokens from A.D. 180 to 260. Some
large copper in 1st and 2nd, thinner than the Ptolemaic. Potsherds
used for writing receipts and letters. Abundance of moulded terra-
cottas, and small lamps.

Roman, Second Period, A.D. 300-641.
The Constantinian Age brings in new styles. Much salmon-coloured hard
pottery, mainly platters and flat dishes. Brown amphorae soft and
smaller, with narrow ribbing. No glaze. Much very thin glass. Coins:
little thin flat copper, as in rest of Empire, ending about 450. No
Egyptian coinage, except a very few rough lumps from Justinian to
Heraclius, I+B on back. Letters written on potsherds and flakes of
limestone.

Red brick the material for all large buildings. Limestone capitals of
debased leafage. Rudely cut relief patterns in wood. Coarsely carved
and turned bone or ivory. Pottery in Byzantine Age with white facing
and rudely painted figures. Textiles, with embroidery in colours, and
especially purple discs with thread designs of the earlier Arab
period. A characteristic of late Roman and Arab mounds is the organic
smell.

Muhammadan Period. Seventh to fifteenth centuries.
Characterized by great amounts of glazed pottery. Smaller antiquities
found in cemeteries or on ruined sites, the earliest transitional,
and related to Coptic examples of the same kinds. Pottery: lamps at
first continue Christian forms and are unglazed; afterwards long
spouted lamps of dark green glaze. Fragments of vessels, &c., from
the rubbish heaps of old Cairo are glazed; a typical faience has a
soft sandy body of light colour with painted designs in blue or blue
and brown with transparent glaze. Those of the Mamluk period, and
probably some of earlier date, show a general resemblance to Western
Asiatic contemporary wares, due to importation of potters from Syria,
Asia Minor, and Persia (between twelfth and fifteenth centuries).
Other varieties have decoration in metallic lustre on an opaque white
tin glaze; others again have monochrome glazes imitating imported
Chinese wares. Inscriptions very rare. Glass: if found, is in
fragments; rich coloured enamel designs are seldom earlier than the
thirteenth century. Textiles: chiefly found in small piece