In spite of the richness and subtlety of their idioms, the classic languages were unable to mark this distinction. In Greek, as in Latin, there was but a single term for two positions which seem to us by no means equal in dignity. § 2. _Glass and Pottery._ The potter's is, perhaps, the oldest of all the crafts. Among the relics of the cave-men and lake-dwellers of the West, the remains of rough pottery, shaped by the hand and dried either by the sun or in the neighbourhood of the domestic hearth, have been found. The Egypt of the earliest dynasties was already more advanced than this. The vases found in the mastabas show by their symmetrical shapes that the potter's wheel was already in use, and by their quality, that, although the Egyptians were content to dry their bricks in the sun, they fired their pottery in kilns and thoroughly understood the process.[362] [362] The oldest representation of the potter's wheel yet discovered is in one of the paintings at Beni-Hassan. It is reproduced in BIRCH'S _Ancient Pottery_, p. 14. Egypt afforded an abundant supply of excellent potter's earth, and her inhabitants, like those of ancient Greece and Italy, employed terra-cotta for purposes to which we should now apply glass, wood, or metal. A good idea of the varied uses to which the material was put may be obtained from the early chapters of the work in which Dr. Birch has traced the history of ancient pottery, with the help of numerous illustrations.[363] [363] S. BIRCH, _A History of Ancient Pottery, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman_, 1 vol. 8vo, 1873. London, Murray. We shall not dwell upon common earthenware. It is represented by numerous vessels from the most ancient tombs in the Memphite necropolis; they are of a reddish or yellowish colour, and, in spite of the absence of all glaze, they hold water perfectly well. Like Greek vessels of the same kind they have sometimes three ears or handles (Fig. 291). Examples of coupled vessels, like those found in Cyprus, have also been discovered. They communicate with one another by a tube and are kept together by a common handle (Fig. 292). Of all the representative specimens of earthenware from the mastabas given by Lepsius, there is but one which does not seem to belong to the category of domestic pottery. It is a kind of aryballus, and is gracefully ornamented with interlacing circles.[364] In later times many of these unglazed vases were decorated with the brush, but they were not remitted to the oven after that operation.[365] The colour was therefore without lustre or solidity, and the designs were always very simple. To this group belong the vases shaped in the form of men, women, or animals, which are common enough in museums.[366] Sometimes a head, recalling that of the god Bes, is sketched in low relief upon a vase, and in a few instances a pair of small arms complete the fanciful design (Fig. 293). [364] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part ii. pl. 153.