Some beautiful examples of mosaic work in the nature of inlaid marbles and precious stones occur in the Mohammedan buildings in India, the chief of which are the Taj Mehal at Agra (Fig. 293) and the great palace at Delhi. The latter has been noticed in the chapter on Indian Architecture in the former volume, and an illustration of the inlaid marble hall is given at Fig. 329 in the same volume. CHAPTER VIII. GLASS. [Illustration: Fig. 294. Glass Vase or Bottle; height, 3½ ins. (B.M.) ] The manufacture of glass is of great antiquity. The invention has been ascribed to the Phœnicians, but specimens of glass beads, amulets, plaques, vases, and small phials or bottles have been found in some of the oldest Egyptian tombs. In the British Museum there is a small piece of blue opaque glass in the form of a lion’s head, which bears the prenomen of the Egyptian monarch Nuntef IV., belonging to the Fourth Dynasty (B.C. 2423-2380). There are also paintings on the walls of early tombs representing bottles with red wine, as well as figures engaged in glass-blowing. A number of glass bowls, vases, and bottles from Nimroud may be seen in the British Museum, the earliest specimen of which is an Assyrian transparent glass vase with two handles, and is inscribed with the name of the monarch Sargon (B.C. 722-705). This is supposed to be the oldest known specimen of transparent glass (Fig. 294). [Illustration: Fig. 295. Phœnician Alabastron. ] Many long-shaped little bottles—_alabastron_—of pale greenish, and others of brilliant colours, with slightly varied shapes, have been dug up from the ruins of Assyrian palaces, and have been found in most of the ancient tombs in Greece, Italy, and in the islands of Cyprus, Sardinia, and Rhodes. These little bottles have been made by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, and Greeks, and their shape, being consecrated by use, remained unchanged for many centuries; they were portable objects of barter, as glass beads also were with the Phœnicians, who distributed them in trade to all parts of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean (Figs. 295, 296). Common forms of the Phœnician glass bottles were small vessels in the shapes of heads, and of dates, grapes, and other fruits, which were blown in moulds. These vessels probably came from the great workshops of Tyre and Sidon; some of them bear the names of their makers—Eugenes, Ennion, and “Artas the Sidonian.” The shapes of many of these vessels are decidedly Greek, and if not Greek in manufacture, have been copied from the shapes of Greek pottery. The colours used were yellow, turquoise, and white on blue, green, or brown, and a common arrangement of these was in zigzag or wavy alternating lines; in other examples the surface was reeded, as may be seen in the alabastron, Fig. 295. [Illustration: Fig. 296.—Necklace of Glass and Gold, Phœnician. (B.M.)]