"hard

attribute its invention to Assyria, as many engraved stones have been found there in the form of cylinders; but in the practice of this art, as well as others, Egypt still maintains over all other nations its high antiquity, demonstrated not only by historical data, but also by engraved stones which have come down to the present time. The king of Egypt, who chose Joseph for his minister, gave him his signet ring as a testimony of his delegated authority, and Joseph lived about 1700 B.C. Engraved gems adorned the ephod and pectoral of the high priest of the Hebrews, and were probably the work of Egyptian artists, B.C. 1490. According to Herodotus, the treasure-cell of Rhampsinitus, whom Sir Gardner Wilkinson identifies with Rameses III., B.C. 1219, was secured by his seal. The collections of engraved stones, called scarabæi, exhibit in the inscriptions engraved on them the names of kings of a very early date. Egyptian cylinders have also been found of the earliest periods; one bears the name of Osirtasen I., B.C. 2020. The study of these monuments of the glyptic art prove that the most ancient productions of the art are the works of the Egyptians. Mr. King attributes the invention of the art of engraving on stones,” crystal, onyx, agate, to the seal engravers of Nineveh, shortly before the reign of Sargon, B.C. 722, as before that period the material used was comparatively soft; the earliest Assyrian cylinders being of serpentine, and the Egyptian scarabæi being of clay or soft stone (steaschist). But squares, used for the bezels of rings of hard stone engraved by the Egyptians, are to be met with of a much earlier date than that of Sargon. A remarkable one may be cited, bearing the name and title of a king of the 18th dynasty (15th century B.C.) of yellow jasper.* There are also others known of carnelian. The engraving of these is, indeed, generally bad, as if the workman was not master of his craft. From there being scarabæi, engraved with Assyrian emblems and sculptural ornaments of undoubted Egyptian origin, not unfrequently found in Assyrian ruins, it is evident that there must have been a close connection between Assyria and Egypt, as is conjectured about the time of the 18th (15th century B.C.) and the four subsequent dynasties. The mode of engraving may therefore have been introduced from Egypt. The knowledge of the art of engraving on hard stones is supposed *There is an engraved agate cylinder of the time of Amenemha II. (B.C. 2020) in the British Museum.

to have been diffused by the Phoenicians among the Asiatic and Insular Greeks.

The Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Romans, practised the art also, and it was preserved among them, like all other arts, until the impetuous irruption of barbarism on the degenerate remains of ancient civilisation. It is conjectured that the Etruscans learnt the art from the Egyptians through the Phœnicians, whose merchant ships trafficked in ornaments and jewellery at an early period, for the most ancient Etruscan engraved stones are also in the form of a scarabæus. Sicily and Magna Græcia preceded Greece in the knowledge of the glyptic art, as well as in that of all other arts which depend on design. The Greeks, however, carried that art to the highest degree of excellence, and it is to their genius that we are indebted for the wonderful perfection it attained to. The art reached a culminating point in the age after Alexander the Great, who gave it a fresh impulse by his patronage, for he gave the privilege of engraving his sacred portrait to Pyrgoteles, the first artist of the day. It thence became the fashion for princes to adopt their own engraved portrait as their signet. Portraits in cameo were introduced at this period. The invention of this style of art belongs, as the works themselves testify, to the times of Alexander's immediate successors, the earliest known cameo being that of Ptolemy Philadelphus and his wife Arsinoe.

The Romans imitated the Greeks in employing engraved gems for signets, though at an early period they adopted the scarab signet of the Etruscans. Under Augustus, gem engraving was brought to a high perfection by the Greek artists of his time. At this period flourished the celebrated engravers, Dioscorides, Solon, Aulus, Gnæus, who introduced the practice of engraving their names on their best works. At this period also a taste for camei and works in relief began to prevail, to which the arrival of pieces of sardonyx from Asia, remarkable for their size and beauty, greatly contributed. These were generally worked into camei, vases, or cups, with subjects in relief on them. Portraits in cameo became the prevailing taste of the age. As is usually the case where there is a large demand for any object, and there is not enough of the genuine material to supply the demand, imitations were made to make up the deficiency. To supply the large demand for these objects, and to please the taste of those who could not afford the more expensive kinds, paste

imitations were made to an enormous extent. Numberless examples of these paste intagli have come down to us. Camei were also imitated with wonderful accuracy, the imitation too of the material itself being admirably carried out. Some wonderful examples of camei in sardonyx have been produced in imperial times. The celebrated sardonyx cameo of the apotheosis of Augustus, now in Paris, is considered a masterpiece of the glyptic art. Some very fine camei are attributed to the age of Hadrian, which has been considered the most flourishing period of Roman art. The glyptic art maintained a tolerable degree of excellence till the time of Septimius Severus, when, together with the other arts, it began gradually to decay. Some fine camei portraits of Severus and his family have come down to us. There was a transient revival of the art in the age of Constantine. Many important camei of this emperor and his successors exist, which, however, are more remarkable for the size and the beauty of the sardonyx-stones presenting them, than for the work upon them. From Rome the art spread almost over the whole west of Europe; but at the time of the last emperors nothing remained except the mechanical part; the genius and spirit of the art, the correctness of design and taste, the nobleness of expression, and even many of the practical advantages of which the ancient masters had availed themselves for conveying their grand ideas on stone, had all vanished together. The last expiring attempts at the art were the rude and ill-drawn Gnostic amulets.

MATERIALS OF THE ART.

THE mechanical process of the glyptic art has not been described in any work which has come down to us from ancient times; a few scanty remarks are found in Pliny. It is generally believed that the ancients used nearly the same process as the moderns, in employing the drill, terebra, also called ferrum retusum, emery powder, and the corundum point for cutting into the stone. The artist engraved the stone partly with iron instruments, smeared with naxium, or emery and oil, which were sometimes round, sometimes pointed and drill-formed, but partly also with a splinter of corundum set in iron. The larger and deeper hollows were sunk by means of the round-pointed

drill charged with oil and emery, which was probably worked by the hand by the means of a bow, while the finer portions were cut by the corundum point. Pliny tells us that the rapidly revolving drill (terebrarum fervor) was the most efficient agent in the process. At a later period of the art among the Romans, after the time of Pliny, the operation of cutting was performed with diamond powder as at the present day. In Pliny's time the wheel, a minute disk of metal fixed on the end of a spindle, which is set in rapid motion by a kind of lathe, and by which

VENUS MARINA. Sard.

the cutting lines and the sinking in the stone are at the present day carried out, does not seem to have been known. It is said to have been first introduced about the time of Domitian. For polishing the stone, naxium, or emery powder, which was also called smyrris, was used. It seems that the ancient artists performed that operation themselves, for the careful polishing of all parts of the engraved figures was a great aim with the ancient stone engravers, and is therefore a criterion of genuineness. These artists were generally designated under the denomination of "lithoglyphi," engravers on stone, a Greek

word to which the Latin, scalptor or cavator, seems synonymous. The art of setting stones was styled among Greeks, lithocollesis, and among the Romans the setters of stones were named "compositores gemmarum." The name of "dactylioglyphi" was given to the engravers of rings, and from the Greek word for ring, dakrúλios, were derived the terms, " dactyliologia," the science of engraved stones in general, but more particularly of finger rings; 'dactyliography," the science of their description; and the “dactyliotheca," a cabinet for collection of this kind of ornament.

The materials employed by the ancients in the glyptic art were various and numerous; they were animal, vegetable, mineral, or artificial. Among the first we may count coral and ivory; among the second, citron wood, box, ebony, sycamore, &c.; the mineral substances were clay, metals, and stones. Mineral substances, from their hardness, and other useful qualities, are more fit for the purposes of the engraver; and none more so than those belonging to the siliceous genus of the earthy class of minerals. That assemblage of stones, however, which is distinguished by the name of precious stones or gems, has scarcely ever been employed by the ancients for the purpose of engraving upon. These scarce and splendid substances were considered sufficiently valuable in themselves, and the art of engraving was more judiciously employed to enhance the value of other less expensive stones, which moreover possessed, in a superior degree, all the properties requisite for the nicest execution. Lessing and the Count de Clarac altogether deny the existence of any really antique intagli in the harder gems; but as Mr. King remarks, the instances that can be adduced of engraved emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, sufficiently prove that this rule, though generally true, yet admits of some, though rare, exceptions. He adds, however, that engravings on any of the precious stones are always to be examined with the greatest suspicion.

Stones may be classed according as they are transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque, and in these three classes may be mentioned: 1st, the diamond, the hyacinth, the sapphire of the present day, the emerald, the ruby, the topaz, the chrysolite, the jacinth, the amethyst, the beryl, the garnet, and rock crystal. 2nd, the opal, plasma, chalcedony, sard, onyx, sardonyx, agate. 3rd, green, yellow, brown, black jasper; lapis-lazuli, the sapphirus of the ancients, hæmatite, obsidian, steatite, basalt, granite, serpentine. Turquoise has also been employed by the Romans.