Just as in the case of the glass found in Egyptian and in early Greek tombs, so now with the enamelled glass of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we are once more brought face to face with the question as to where it was made—in Syria or in Egypt. Syria was at this time again under rulers who had their capital in Egypt; there are indeed few important periods in Egyptian history when this has not been the case. Alexandria, it is true, had fallen from its old position,[106] but it is distinctly recorded that glass was made in the fourteenth century at Mansourah, the recently founded ‘town of victory,’ above Damietta. At many places in Upper Egypt, especially at Achmin, fragments, most of them, but not all, to be referred to Saracenic times, have been found. But on the whole the evidence for a Syrian origin for this enamelled ware is much stronger,—I say the _origin_, because it is just in the case of those rare pieces to which an early date can be ascribed that we can be certain of an Asiatic _provenance_. The enamelled glass of the Saracens forms, as I have said, a compact group. The specimens that we have of it are all, or nearly all, handsome pieces, worthy, apart from their archæological interest, of a conspicuous place in our museums or on the shelves of the most fastidious amateur. Their number is strictly limited—indeed Herr Schmoranz has drawn up a careful list which claims to contain every known example.[107] Thanks in great measure to the researches of this expert, we are able now to make a rough general division of this glass into two classes:— 1st. Vases, goblets, and basins of many forms, brought for the most part from Syria. The bulk of the enamelled glass in this division appears to date from the thirteenth century. Several famous pieces have for centuries been preserved in the treasuries of Western churches. For these it is claimed that they have been brought back from the Holy Land by crusaders and pilgrims—filled, some of them, with earth taken from Bethlehem or other holy spots. 2nd. Lamps, obtained almost without exception from mosques in Cairo. These lamps belong, as a class, to the fourteenth century. Only of recent years has much attention been given to them; they were almost unknown to the older collectors.[108] The supply appears, however, to be already exhausted. The decoration on these lamps is on the whole more broadly treated, with less detail and finish, than that found on the vases and goblets of our first class.