In the Roman age there is an entirely new style. The body of the vase is of a purple-black colour, with a wreath of bright green leaves around it. Such continued almost to Coptic times. The bulk of the Roman glaze is of coarse forms, and bright Prussian blue in tint. The vases have animals in relief, apparently under Persian influence. The flat trays with straight sides are copies of the silver dishes of the time. The old style of glazing continued down to Arab times; a steatite amulet, in the cutting, and colour of the glaze, might well have been of the Shishak age, but for the Arabic inscription upon it. And at the present day some creditable imitations of ancient glazing are made for fraudulent trade at Thebes. Turning to the more technical matters, the body of the ware is always a porous, friable, siliceous paste; in some cases so soft that it can be rubbed away from the broken surfaces by the finger. The unglazed beads and figures occasionally found can hardly be handled without breaking. This paste was moulded roughly into form, and when dry it was graved with a point to give the detail. If it broke in the fingers a good figure would be stuck together again with a scrap of the paste before glazing. Large objects were made in sections, dried and baked, and then joined up with some of the same paste, and re-baked before covering with glaze. In the XXVIth dynasty there is a beautiful hard stoneware, apparently made by mixing some glaze with the body, enough to fuse it together into a solid mass throughout. The surface of these works is always very fine and smooth, without any face glaze, but only the compact polished body. The usual colour is apple-green, but violet is sometimes found in the early examples of the XVIIIth dynasty.