In any case, it is from Greek tombs of the Hellenistic period that we obtain our earliest specimens of glass, other than the small articles of _verroterie_ that formed the exclusive subject-matter of the last chapter. There have been preserved a few rare bowls of transparent glass, sometimes quite colourless, or more often stained with blue or with a honey-like tint resembling that of the hyacinth or the sard. These bowls are distinguished by the purity of their outline; they have apparently been finished on a lathe, but whether the glass was originally simply cast, or, as is possible, _blown into_ a mould, it is impossible to say. The only ornament consists in one or more incised lines near the margin. A few of these bowls have been obtained in Athens, others come from tombs in the south of Italy,—we have unfortunately no means of fixing the date in either case. It is rather from the refinement of their curves and the restraint in the decoration that we are led to class them as pre-Roman. But it is from the glass found in the tombs of Canosa that we can form the best idea of what the Greeks of Ptolemaic times were capable in this direction, and we are fortunate in having in London a remarkable series of glass vessels from these tombs. Canusium was one of the few cities of Apulia that preserved much of its Greek culture as well as the partial use of the Greek language well into the time of the Roman Empire. The beautiful specimens in the Glass-Room in the British Museum, some of them so thoroughly Hellenic in character, are referred to the first century of our era, but in general character and feeling, as well as in their shapes, they reflect the art of an earlier period. A bowl of pure white glass—the sharp outlines, especially of the solid handles, show that it was finished by a cutting tool—is of a form (the σκύφος of the Greeks) well known both in pottery and metal ware. The two graceful bowls, decorated in gold with an exquisite design of acanthus leaves, combined with a small plant with tendrils, both radiating from a central flower, even in their present condition, perhaps surpass in beauty any other known example of ancient glass. From the technical side, the marvellous skill with which the two shells of glass of which these bowls are built up, are fitted together, should be carefully noted. It will be observed that the inner shell projects considerably beyond the outer one, and that the latter at the line of junction has been apparently levelled down by subsequent grinding. How far the two layers have been soldered together by subsequent firing, it would be difficult to say. Between the two shells, the gold leaf that forms the base of the decoration has been applied. We are reminded (but _longo intervallo_, not only artistically but technically also) both of the so-called cemetery glass of later date, and of the ‘doubled glasses’ made in the eighteenth century in Bohemia.