‘A metal rod of the size of the intended interior of the neck, and rather conical, was coated at the end with a ball of sand held together by cloth and string. This was covered with glass, probably by winding a thread of glass round it, as large beads of this age are thus made. The vase could then be reheated as often as needed for working by holding it in a furnace, the metal rod forming a handle, and the sand inside the vase preventing its collapse. Threads of coloured glass could then be wound round it and incorporated by rolling; the wavy pattern was produced by dragging the surface in different directions, the foot was pressed into shape by pincers, the brim was formed, and the handles were put on. Lastly, on cooling, the metal rod would contract and come loose from the neck, and after it was withdrawn the sand could be rubbed out from the body of the vase.’ The wavy decoration thus obtained was of two types: (i) formed simply by a succession of crescent-shape curves, or (ii) by means of a double drag, the pattern assumed a form like a frond of palm leaves, or still more like these leaves plaited into a basket. (Cf. Pl. II.) The number of these little vases that can be definitely attributed to the Eighteenth Dynasty (say about the sixteenth or fifteenth century B.C.) is small, but it is worthy of note that for brilliancy of colour and for purity of the glassy paste, the early examples are unsurpassed in later times. This is certainly a remarkable fact, especially if we are to regard the art as a new one. I cannot enter here into the evidence that would seem to point to a foreign origin for this early Egyptian glass—it will be enough to mention the conquests of Thothmes III. in Syria, and the close relation of his successor, Akhenaten, the ‘heretic king,’ with Syria and Babylonia, as shown by his marriage, and by the famous Tell-el-Amarna tablets. As bearing on this question I may refer to certain paintings on a tomb of this age at Drag Aboul Neggah, near Thebes (reproduced in the _Revue Archéologique_, 1895, Pl. 15), which represent the unloading of a foreign trading-vessel. We can distinguish here the merchants offering certain objects of value to an Egyptian official; among these are certain striped vases which have been doubtfully recognised as of glass. In the hieroglyphics accompanying wall paintings of this period we more than once find that vessels of rock crystal and _lapis lazuli_ are mentioned, as well as blocks of uncut stones, and neither by the hieroglyphics used nor by the representation of the objects would it be easy to distinguish the latter material from lumps of glass. Again, Syrian workmen are known to have been employed at this time in Egypt, and nowhere would this be more likely than in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace of the king at Tell-el-Amarna, where the glass-works described by Dr. Petrie were situated.