The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEngraved Gems

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEngraved GemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Engraved GemsAuthor: Maxwell SommervilleRelease date: July 12, 2018 [eBook #57492]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGRAVED GEMS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Engraved GemsAuthor: Maxwell SommervilleRelease date: July 12, 2018 [eBook #57492]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)

Title: Engraved Gems

Author: Maxwell Sommerville

Release date: July 12, 2018 [eBook #57492]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGRAVED GEMS ***

My former treatise, “Engraved Gems, their Place in the History of Art,” being largely illustrated and inconvenient in size, I have abridged the work and with new material prepared this volume.

The various epochs of gem engraving from the earliest eras down to the XVIII. century are briefly described.

Many people throughout the year cast passing glances at my glyptic collection in the Free Museum of Science and Art of the University of Pennsylvania.

They express great admiration of the beautiful objects in stones of many colors and interesting designs.

It was never intended to make only an attractive display; what I have always desired and hoped for was that a proportion of our visitors would recognize in my life’s work a contribution to science.

It is a classified representation of the glyptic work of more than forty centuries, so carefully arranged that those who care to learn through the medium of those beautiful engraved stones, cylinders, seals, andGnostic tokens, may inform themselves intelligently on the science which these gems of all epochs so thoroughly exemplify.

Men in this Western World during the last three hundred years have been engrossed in the pursuit and acquisition of fortunes.

A fair proportion of the population now having secured competency, that condition once assured, with increased opportunities for intellectual culture and the enjoyment of art, the development of refined tastes and pursuits in America has been marked by the formation of many private collections. Amateurs have gradually become connoisseurs in manuscripts, ceramics, enamels, engravings, ancient coins, armor, and arms. Happily, each is engrossed in his particular branch of antiquities.

It is to be hoped that we may all profit by their researches, and that the antique objects acquired by them may be stored in the Archæological Museums of the world, that all who will may view them and learn from them.

Maxwell Sommerville.

Presuming that the majority of my readers would understand the Latin inscription from an engraved stone, which decorates the cover of this book, I have not given any translation. By request I add the following explanation:

“Not alone for ourselves were we born, and of ourbirth our country claims for itself a part, our parentsa part, our friends a part” (vendicat for vindicat).

On the reverse of the stone, which is not shown, is the inscription—

MORTIS MORES OMNIBUS ÆQUALES.

This is one of those peculiar maxims so often found in the Latin language, as it is employed in epitaphs. The simplest manner in which it can be translated is as follows:

Death is here personified, as was Peace, Justice, Concord, etc., by the Romans.

Maxwell Sommerville.

When specimens of any ancient art industry are brought together and classified in a museum it is interesting to compare each piece and trace the work from the hands of the different nationalities through all the transitions and changing history of past centuries.

My collection exemplifies the progress in execution of engraved gems from the most primitive eras through periods of varying excellence and of inevitable decline. The quality of the execution approaches perfection and degenerates as in a geometrical progression repeating itself in reverse; advancing and improving in fineness up to nearly the end of the first century, the century of Christ, and from the beginning of the second century retrograding to the base of mediocrity at the end of the fifth century.

The sixth and seventh centuries, the Byzantine period, yielded a group of principally religious cameos, abundant, curious, and of great interest.

This was succeeded by several hundred years not of repose in the art, but of wretched ignorance, when man almost ceased to create a connecting link in the history of the glyptic art. With rare exceptions, the specimens of that time scarcely merit the designation of gems: it was a period that may be reasonably identified as the night of art, when, alas! in the darkness blows were stricken which destroyed and reduced to fragments much that was precious and beautiful, and vandalism, contributing nothing that was fair, robbed us of a large part of our inheritance.

The progression alluded to is, in my estimation, only a question of comparative beauty. If we seek for, or are capable of appreciating, the most interesting, that which gives us history, we must find it at the beginning of that progression—the era of the Babylonians—with its messages handed down to us on their wonderful cylinders.

My path of research has led me where are gathered stones—engraved stones, art-links in a carved chain reaching from the earliest cylinders and seals of the Persians, centuries before and beyond those wonderful stone books, the inscribed temples of Egypt.

Whilst considering and studying these specimens of the work of the ancients we will walk upon the crumbled ruins of by-gone centuries; our retrospective view shall be where changing elements, rust, and age have spared but traces of palaces and temples; we will stroll beside the pebbled course of a rapid stream untilwe reach a grove where I oft have been, and found a rich repast; no shrines, no obelisks, no statues, naught but these precious little stepping-stones, by which we will follow the stream of thus revealed history, and in the vale of antiquity, with these miniature monuments, study and enjoy the indelible portraiture of ages.

Palaces, obelisks, statues, and the walls of ancient cities have rarely been preserved to us, other than in decay, ruin, and fragments.

Yet engraved gems, those smaller monuments on hard stones, have been spared in the very débris of these larger structures, and we are thus enabled to secure examples of the handiwork of one branch of art, covering many epochs and periods.

My earnest eyes have looked up to and gazed upon the silent monuments and shrines of men, who during long centuries have rested from their scientific labors. A wanderer in lands adapted to my researches, my object has been to learn something of these mute monitors and to bring back to my native land examples of the special branch of ancient art which has been the pursuit of my life. Many discouraging moments, even years, have been passed, yet always with the hope that my labor and its results might some day be appreciated.

Years ago while rejoicing in the possession of the glyptic portraits of the Emperors Tiberius, Caracalla, Constantine, and that of Faustina, I thought with pleasant anticipation of the moment when on returningfrom voyages of acquisition I might introduce them to intellectual friends of “Science and Art.”

These gems are here being considered in their respective epochs. Those who desire to inform themselves on the science of “Engraved Gems” will find in these pages a brief view of that subject; it is in response to many friendly demands, and shall be as concise as reasonably possible, in keeping with ancient records on engraved stones, cylinders, and seals. Your attention is asked to this general view of the subject, with the hope that it may enlist some inquirers and admirers of this glyptic question, so little esteemed or understood in these days; a subject not only representing a branch of art covering a period of forty odd centuries, but a science through whose engraved gems we have been enabled to enrich our knowledge of the ancient history of the world.

Each nation which in ancient times practised the glyptic art, produced a certain style or quality of execution.

After serious study of the general subject of glyptology, one finds that the work of each epoch, and of each nationality, bears some unmistakable trait. These features we can almost always recognize as emanating from a certain people.

So completely have we acquired an acquaintance with the various characteristics of each nation’s handiwork in engraving gems, that we are enabled also to discern the epoch; not to a year, but within a century or even a decade.

In proportion to the rudeness of the incisions we recognize the barbaric condition of the people among whom they were incised; also in proportion to the fineness of the incision, beauty of conception, and execution of the design, do we estimate the civilization of the epoch and of the people.

Some of the nations who have bequeathed us engraved gems were, in two respects, the first sculptors. They were first, not only because none of ability had preceded them, but rather were they first in art rank, and in excellence of conception; their execution has never been surpassed; their statues and high reliefs have never been equalled in modern times.

Many of those colossal art works in stone have been transported to the Vatican, to France, England, Austria, Germany, Russia, some even to America; we are all conversant with them. Therefore, you can readily imagine how we define and classify the work of each epoch and nation, when a miscellaneous mass of engraved gems are placed before us for classification.

Everyone in these days is familiar with those colossal stone figures of Rameses, Osiris, Thotmes, and others in the sands of Egypt. Their heavy, placid countenances, almost seeming to dream, while their inert arms and hands hold forth the insignia of autocrats of Egypt under the Pharaohs.

In Egypt, especially in the earlier or more remote dynasties, man seems to have had the intention of handing down to posterity the records of his power, his possessions, and of his own appearance, on great stone statues, obelisks, and basso-rilievos, in the most indestructible manner.

Besides the colossal stone bequests created for generations unborn, happily they produced the same portraitures and cartouches in miniature gems. The majority of the temple decorations in stone have crumbled, while we can possess and enjoy the glyptic relics which have survived the ravages of time uninjured.

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

467

480 obverse.

489 obverse.

458

480 reverse.

489 reverse.

456

EGYPTIAN.

Among the Scarabei are especially interesting examples larger in size termed funereal; No. 1476 in my University Collection is one of those Scarabei which were buried with the dead, sometimes on the breastunderneath the wrappings, and sometimes within the body of the mummy in the place of the heart. The heart was embalmed separately in a vase, and placed under the protection of the genius Duaoumautew. This doubtlessly was done because the heart was considered indispensable for the resurrection, yet it could not be placed in the body until it had been upon the scales and had passed the judgment of Osiris. When the sentence was favorable it was promised that “his heart shall be returned to its original cavity.” The heart, the principle of existence and regeneration, was symbolized by the Scarabeus. This is why texts relative to the heart were inscribed on funereal Scarabei. On this Scarabeus the deceased speaks, saying: “I hope that my soul shall speedily quit or rise from the regions infernal, and, reappearing on earth, may do all that pleases it.”

Also No. 1479, a funereal Scarabeus, interesting from the fact that the inscription contains part of the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead—that is, the chapter concerning the heart: “My heart, which comes to me from my mother—my heart, necessary to my existence on earth—do not raise thyself against me among or before the chief divinities.” These were the superior gods, whom the Egyptians supposed to be in the immediate surrounding or presence of Isis.

The remainder of the inscription is less legible. On the first line is the name of Osiris Jam (all the dead had Osiris prefixed to their names); on the last line is thename of his father, which is indistinct; it was evidently the same as the name of a plant, and ending with M, but cannot be defined; that is, it is inscribed “son of ——,” and then the unintelligible name alluded to.

Also No. 1457, a funereal Scarabeus, on which the deceased, speaking, expresses hopes, continually repeated, that his soul may have a happy voyage, happy relief, and transport from the inevitable transitory domain to which all are consigned.

Also No. 1480, Egyptian Scarabeus, containing a vow or wish, a vase representing a libation. The sum of the rendering of the inscription is: “I dedicate my life to truth, and hope for cooling breezes and libations.”

And No. 1461. The inscription expresses a vow or wish: “Nefer Khet Neb”—“All things good (for thee)!”—a New Year’s wish.

There were artisans who engraved the larger funereal Scarabei and kept them ready made on sale, so that in the event of a man dying unexpectedly in youth or the prime of life who had not thought to prepare for his sojourn in the tomb, his family repaired to these shops, and, choosing a Scarabeus to their taste or liking, purchased it; the engraver then added the name of the deceased, and they placed it under the wrappings of the mummy.

These traffickers also did a thriving trade with the living: many provided themselves in advance. There were always a variety from which to choose; the engraver had them for every taste. They were inscribedwith just such vows or wishes for the future and the repose or the enjoyment of the soul, or the commending of the soul to the patronage and protection of some special god or deess, as the case might demand for a man or a woman. Often selections were given from the poetic devotional writings of their mentors, and frequently we meet with selections from the Book of the Dead.

We find shreds and examples of the costumes of the occupants of graves of other ancient nations. These garments were made, as now, that the body might be decorously placed at rest. This we also find in Egypt, the mummy-wrappings concealing and protecting the Scarabei presenting this beautiful sentiment, indeed unique—a symbol that was worn in life, emblematic of its ephemeral tenure and of the ultimate resurrection from death and the grave; a symbol that accompanied its owner to the narrow home, not to ornament it, but as a token of that tenant’s belief that this would be only a brief occupancy; a symbol ready to be worn when that tenant should enter on his resurrection into an eternal lease of joy in a world beyond.

We are particularly interested in the curious and elaborately engraved cylinders and seals of the Assyrians, Persians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Hittites, which not only give us their costumes, but are laden with cuneiform inscriptions. In my collection there is a gem of the same style of work as the stone slab in the University Museum procured by Professor H. V. Hilprecht from the ancient palace of Ashurna Sirbal, King of Assyria 884 to 860B. C.

This glyptic specimen is in miniature, engraved on a rich wine-colored dark sard bearing a portrait of King Sapor I.; he was the second of the Sassanians, who reigned in the third century. He was crowned in theyear 242A. D.It is surrounded by an inscription in Sassanian. Sapor’s invasion of Palmyra and his contests with the forces of Zenobia are interesting incidents of that romantic episode in Oriental history.

PERSIAN AND SASSANIAN SEALS.

Cylinders are evidently the oldest form of seals, though it is believed that the art originated on sections of wooden reeds. We find Chaldean cylinders now more than 4000 years old.

The signets of kings in the cylindric form were incised in the harder and more precious materials, such as chalcedony in several hues, the fairest those tinged with a sapphire tint (though not the most ancient), sards, carnelians, and occasionally beautiful red jasper; hematite in abundance; serpentine and many softer stones, alabaster, steatite, etc.

It remains a question on what materials the impressions were made, though scientists have learned that the figures in relief on patties of pipe-clay found so plentifully in Babylon are the imprints of these cylinders.

Though a large proportion of cylinders are rudely designed and more coarsely executed, many of them are freely, vigorously, and well drawn, evincing a high degree of talent.

Remark the anatomical drawings of man and beast; they are unsurpassed in any age, especially the contest between men and lions, where naturally the muscles are strongly developed and show prominently.

As bearers of messages from that remote period, theycome more welcome to us than the fairest Greek or Roman intaglios.

With an interesting pictured and lettered cylinder in hand one may have before him one of the keys to the most ancient fountain-heads in which history is locked up. My taste has grown and perhaps been influenced by long association with such gems, until I now often find more pleasure in regarding a rude fragment of Assyrian work than I did thirty years ago when I sought only the beautiful.

The place of these Babylonian cylinders in the history of art cannot be classed as decorative, for as they were originally used only as seals, and mostly business or official signets, they were not at that time used to decorate the person, though they were worn on necklaces and bracelets by the ancient Greeks.

No. 499 in my collection is one of the most interesting because the great and lamented François Lenormant examined it with me, wrote his opinion, and expressed his admiration of it.

It is a Babylonian cylinder, 29 millimetres broad by 3 millimetres in length. On it is represented a seated god with a two-horned head-dress in a long flounced dress; before him an altar with four spreading legs, an antelope, a small walking figure, a scorpion, two birds facing one another; other human figures.

Lenormant wrote while attending a seance of l’Institut de France.

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

1403

1405

498

499

1374

IMPRESSIONS OF BABYLONIAN CYLINDERS.

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

ASSYRIAN.1366

PERSIAN.1402

HITTITE.1401

PHŒNICIAN.495

CYPRIAN.1370

IMPRESSIONS OF ASSYRIAN, PERSIAN, HITTITE, PHŒNICIAN, AND CYPRIAN CYLINDERS.

“This cylinder which appears to be of serpentinebelongs incontestably to the most antique epoch of Chaldean art of the first years of the ancient empire. It is at least contemporaneous with those cylinders bearing the names of the oldest kings of d’Ous and like those of the Dungi.”

Persia and Assyria furnish us also a beautiful series of seals; the earlier conical, then a series of spherical seals, with one side flattened, on which is the design and inscription, and then the later Sassanian, also spherical, yet more flattened on the sides, which are pierced, and whose circumferences are beautifully ornamented.

There exist a large series of subjects adopted by their owners on account of their superstitious belief in their talismanic virtues; and quite a series of rudely-drawn animals emblematic of vigilance, fidelity, courage, strength, etc. Sometimes on seals as well as on cylinders a full-length figure is given in whose costume there is a marked peculiarity of drapery, the folds crossing the form diagonally, like a Burmese Sarong.

They are on a great variety of chalcedonies, sards, jaspers, and other beautiful stones of color.

Those of the Assyrians, dating as far back as 1110B. C., resemble in form the bells herdsmen hang upon their grazing cattle that they may hear them when they have strayed.

The location of the ancient Persians in proximity to India, whose river-beds were rich in varieties of hard water-worn pebbles, enabled them to procure fromthence suitable stones for decoration and for inscriptions. Thousands of these decorated and inscribed stones have been unearthed and are to-day in our possession; glyptologists can and have read them. Many examples of these cylinders, seals, and their imprints are before you.

It is proven that the Assyrians knew of and practiced the art of engraving on stone; we are not fully convinced that they were the first to practice the art.

We are frequently able to corroborate glyptic inscriptions by statements in Holy Writ, though we certainly find on ancient cylinders, incisions many centuries anterior to the records to which we have here alluded.

We know little of the Assyrian divinities through ancient manuscripts, yet we have volumes about their deities written on the cylinders of Babylon and Nineveh. They were seldom in metallic mountings, but, being pierced with holes, were strung on cords and worn on the wrist and neck.

There is a host of occupants of the Assyrian heaven, with Asshur the supreme god, Beltis Mylitta the great mother, etc.; and on the seals in sard and chalcedony we have sacred doves, lions, horses, etc., and a winged bull, Nin, the god of hunting, etc.

These intaglio seals were often used as locks; the doors of wine-cellars were secured by placing a seal upon them. Cylinders have also been made by several races of South American Indians, and are still to be seen in Brazil.

BABYLONIAN CYLINDERS, THE SOURCE OF HISTORY.

We have a most interesting and instructive illustrationof the value of modern research among the relics of antiquity in the fact that in 1854, Sir Henry Rawlinson, in deciphering the inscriptions on some cylinders found in the ruins of Um-Kir (the ancient Ur of the Chaldees), made historical discoveries in regard to the last King of Babylon that confirmed the truth of the book of Daniel, and harmonized discrepancies between Holy Scripture and profane history which up to that time had been hopelessly irreconcilable.

Among the bequests from Persia many gems are engraved on the hardest and most precious stones; they present us with portraits of their monarchs, deities, legends, religious creeds, and seals of office. Though rude, they are exceedingly interesting from their antiquity and as being the achievements of a people so remote from the European centre of civilization.

The country of the ancient Etruscans was north from the Tiber to the Ciminian Forest and the Tolfa Mountains.

They have bequeathed us a mass of gems, a large proportion in the form of Scarabei, and many really fine intaglios, which were not only used as seals, but served as decorations, both in finger-rings and as brooches for women. The Etruscan tombs have yielded many Scarabei in mountings of virgin gold, sometimes the precious metal twisted, again corrugated; also some ornamental gold work as brooches. The sard and chalcedony beetles usually had an engraved beaded margin, and were revolvable, being set on a pivot which was attached to a frame generally oval in form.

The Etruscans, unlike their predecessors, have left us few examples other than the very gems and Scarabei by which to study their glyptic work. We have the decorations of their sepulchral homes; we know of their costumes by their mural paintings in those subterranean chambers.

Their glyptic style is unique; a series of deeply-drilled cavities, afterward joined to one another, forming designs frequently contorted by the artist in hisendeavor to bring his subject into the very limited space of the under face of the Scarabeus.

ETRUSCAN.

The Etruscans probably borrowed the idea of the Scarabeus form of gem from the Egyptians; they certainly shaped it more beautifully. They seem to have adopted only the symbol.

There was a difference in the quality of their Scarabei corresponding with the classes or stations in the life of the people; those cut for royalty, nobility, or the wealthy naturally received more attention in forming and finishing.

Those for the tradespeople, the well-to-do, we find quite a distinctive order. In this group they are less graceful in shape, the beetles are rounder, thicker, and shorter, not so carefully finished, as also the simpler borders formed of two lines just within the edge, either crossed with regular, straight, or oblique lines forming bars, with some little variety of pattern.

The Etruscans called themselves the Rasenna; the early Italians knew them as the Tusci or Etrusci. The Greeks denominated the race as Turrhenoi or Tursenoi, and the ancient Latin name was Tursci.

The engraved records of the Etruscans have hitherto successfully defied all attempts at interpretation. Now that the Assyrian and Egyptian records have been read, these Etruscan inscriptions present the only considerable philological problem that still remains unsolved. But that it remains unsolved has not been for want of effort. A vast amount of ingenuity and of eruditionhas been wasted in attempts to explain the inscriptions by the aid of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Phœnician, Arabic, Ethiopic, Chinese, Coptic, and Basque have all been tried in vain.

It may be safely affirmed that few of these attempts have been regarded as satisfactory by any person except their authors.

A comparison of the Etruscan inscriptions with the characters of the Finno-Turkic language, a form of speech employed by those inhabiting the region lying between the Ural and the Altai Mountains, has, I believe, resulted with the first and only success that has ever attended such investigations.

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

548

546

553

558

555

554

PHŒNICIAN SCARABEI AND INTAGLIOS.

Alas, we have to dig deep and toil to learn all we want to know so much about these people who 2500 years ago inhabited that narrow mountain-guarded strip of land looking westward on the same emerald sea that to-day breaks on the shore of what is now Syria.

They have consigned us no books, no pamphlets, no journals, not a page—only here and there do we unearth a graven stone, an inscribed cylinder and Scarabeus; and with these stone fragments of that nation’s literary bequests we will hope to obtain some idea of the history of Phœnicia—Phœnicia, whose people, not content with mounting five thousand feet to the temple of the Casian Jupiter, to see the sun upon the morning horizon, floated away on their frail barks on the deep waters, seeking light, knowledge, and gain. Mythology was their religion, which, like the subjects and styles of their engraved stones and gems of iridescent antique paste, was borrowed from Assyria, Greece, and even somewhat from the myths of the people among whom many of them settled.

Herodotus speaks of the Phœnicians as a branch of the Semitic or Aramæan nations; they originally dwelton the shores of the Erythrean Sea. They also occupied islands in the Persian Gulf, among others Aradus and Tylus, where temples in Phœnician architecture were found; and it is known that the Phœnicians left these islands and colonized in the Ægean and Mediterranean Seas before the time of Joshua, 1444B. C.

Of the Romans and the Grecians, we have their history through the writings of their own historians; and of the Egyptians, by their monuments teeming with hieroglyphics, history, and theology. Of the Phœnicians little is extant in writings from their own people; we are dependent on what other nations have recorded—in fact, what we know of them may be called tradition. The Phœnicians were termed “the merchants of many isles.” We can hardly say they cultivated the arts at home, for wherever they went, there they made their home; on every island inhabited by them are found evidences of their industry as gem-cutters—intaglios, scarabei, and seals. I remember how I was impressed on going ashore at Syra and walking through its beautiful amphitheatral city of to-day, whose site had once known those very Phœnicians, examples of whose gems may be seen in my collection.

They emigrated as far west as Sardinia. Sardinia was originally called Sandaleotis, from its form, which resembles a human foot or its imprint, where during centuries a moderate harvest has been reaped of gems emanating from their handiwork.

SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.

1810

1799

1805

1795

1796

519

1800

PHŒNICIA.

To a practised eye their work is distinguishable from that of other nations; the touch, drawing, execution, and the distinctive character of their subjects render them readily recognizable. Yet the symbolic characters are not entirely distinctive, for they often clearly indicate imitation of Assyrian and Egyptian work and design. For that reason it is often difficult to decide or classify gem-objects found in many of the islands once colonized by them, from the very fact that in design they at times lack originality.

They were a migratory people, and in this brief glance at the whole range of our subject we shall be satisfied with mention of their colony at Tharros, on the island at Sardinia, where the most unquestionably authentic Phœnician Scarabei have been found in excavations made during the last sixty years. They are principally cut on green jasper, and in character resemble Persian designs.

In these times we write our history every day on millions of great pages of white paper. In almost no contingency will future generations have any difficulty of learning who we were, where we came from, how we have formed the master metal—iron—into thousands of implements and instruments, or how they have been employed; being supplied with our ready inscribed history, they can begin where we have left off and profit by our experience.

The earliest specimens of Greek gems bore traces of Egyptian style; they represented objects rather symbolically than by artistic delineation of the beautiful in the human form or in nature. On the box of Cypselus death was represented with crooked legs, beauty and youth by long tresses of hair, power by long hands, swiftness and agility by long feet. Many of the oldest Greek statues were accompanied with the names of the subjects represented, which seems to imply that the artist was conscious of his deficiency, both in character and expression. Yet in time they created single figures and groups in fair marble, whose symmetry and exquisite modelling of the human form command the admiration of all. They are either at rest or displaying the muscles, sinews, and even the passions of athletic men and adorable women.

Greece was the source of the finest and richest glyptic art-treasures in a decorative sense. Grecian intaglios are of superb execution, of exquisite fineness and finish.This superiority can in a measure be accounted for by the encouragement the profession received from the nation, both from rulers and from the people.

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