e
hieroglyphic inscriptions as well as the details of the mummy bandages are
chased in relief upon a white ground of admirable smoothness afterwards
filled in with enamel. The face and hands are of turquoise blue; the head-
dress is yellow, with violet stripes; the hieroglyphic characters of the
inscription, and the vulture with outspread wings upon the breast of the
figure, are also violet. The whole is delicate, brilliant, and harmonious;
not a flaw mars the purity of the contours or the clearness of the lines.

[Illustration: Fig. 233.--Interior decoration of cup, Eighteenth Dynasty.]

[Illustration: Fig. 234.--Lenticular vase, glazed ware, Saite.]

[Illustration: Fig. 235.--Chamber decorated with tiles in step pyramid of
Sakkarah.]

Glazed pottery was common from the earliest times. Cups with a foot (fig.
232), blue bowls, rounded at the bottom and decorated in black ink with
mystic eyes, lotus flowers, fishes (fig. 233), and palm-leaves, date, as a
rule, from the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, or Twentieth Dynasties. Lenticular
ampullae coated with a greenish glaze, flanked by two crouching monkeys for
handles, decorated along the edge with pearl or egg-shaped ornaments, and
round the body with elaborate collars (fig. 234), belong almost without
exception to the reigns of Apries and Amasis.[66] Sistrum handles, saucers,
drinking-cups in the form of a half-blown lotus, plates, dishes--in short,
all vessels in common use--were required to be not only easy to keep clean,
but pleasant to look upon. Did they carry their taste for enamelled ware so
far as to cover the walls of their houses with glazed tiles? Upon this
point we can pronounce neither affirmatively nor negatively; the few
examples of this kind of decoration which we possess being all from royal
buildings. Upon a yellow brick, we have the family name and _Ka_ name of
Pepi I.; upon a green brick, the name of Rameses III.; upon certain red and
white fragments, the names of Seti I. and Sheshonk.

[Illustration: Fig. 236.--Tile from step pyramid of Sakkarah.]

Up to the beginning of the present century, one of the chambers in the step
pyramid at Sakkarah yet retained its mural decoration of glazed ware (fig.
235). For three-fourths of the wall-surface it was covered with green
tiles, oblong in shape, flat at the back, and slightly convex on the face
(fig. 236). A square tenon, pierced through with a hole large enough to
receive a wooden rod, served to fix them toge