In addition to these decorations the ancient books dating from late Roman times onward were often illustrated, sometimes profusely so. Full page pictures were inserted illustrating the text or giving the portraits of persons referred to in it. The oldest of these pictures are in a bad state of preservation on account of the crude methods of the artists. The background was first painted in a solid color. A figure, for instance, would then be put on in another color, clothing would be painted over that, armor over clothing and so on. The picture being thus built up in layers of different paints it was very liable to flake off, leaving only the background. Illustrations dating from the introduction of a better technique are still very beautiful. No language could adequately describe the beauty and the richness of these decorations, or illuminations as they are termed. They look out to us to-day from the yellowing vellum with all the brilliancy of color and vigor of conception which they originally possessed. They are not only beautiful in themselves but they are a valuable source of information concerning the life of the middle ages. In those days the painters of pictures made no attempt at archaeological accuracy. If they were illuminating a Bible they represented Abraham and Moses, Pharaoh and Solomon, Jesus and Paul and Goliath in the costume of the king, priest, citizen, or soldier of the painter's own day. Their method of treatment of their subjects, the subjects chosen, the use of materials in ornamentation, every detail of these decorations is eloquent of the life and thought of the ages in which they were produced. CHAPTER V _Ancient and Mediaeval Libraries_ Books involved libraries. The book is written to preserve a record and this involves the preservation of the book itself. Consequently almost all of the centers of the world's civilization were at the same time the homes of great collections of books, or libraries. The ancient Egyptians had many such although we have the record of but one. Rameses the Great, who has been generally, though probably erroneously, identified as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but who probably lived within about a century of that time, housed a great library in his palace at Thebes. Such a library, of course, would have consisted of papyrus rolls and must have been rich in that learning of the Egyptians which the old chronicle tells us was familiar to Moses. What would we not give if we could only find those precious rolls in some of the corners which the archaeologists are so busily exploring and which are constantly yielding new stores of information about that ancient civilization?