The designs were entirely ruled by the method of manufacture. The glass was never cast, but was worked as a pasty mass, and all the decoration was made by inlaying threads of glass drawn out to various thicknesses. The actual production of the glass we deal with below. The patterns on a vase or bead were produced by winding threads around the body, and then dragging the surface at regular intervals (figs. 120, 121). If dragged always in one direction, it made a series of loops or U pattern; if dragged alternately each way it made an ogee pattern. Around the neck and foot a thick thread was often put on, with a thin thread spirally round it, usually white with black spiral. The forms of the vases are those usual in other materials at this period, such as [Illustration]. This same method was followed in the glass found at Cumae near Naples, dating from about 700 B.C. It is distinguished from the Egyptian fabric by a duller surface and duller colouring, and a common form unknown before is [Illustration]. This later glass is usually mixed with the earlier in museums, and occasionally it is difficult to distinguish it; but both the forms and the colour leave very little doubt as to the age. This system of winding threads of glass was usual for beads also. A mere chip of a glass bead can be distinguished, whether Egyptian or Roman, by the direction of the streaks and bubbles in it. The early glass is all wound, with lines running around; the Roman glass is all drawn out and nicked off, with lines running along; the medieval and modern Venetian beads are again wound, and some of the recent ones closely imitate Egyptian dragged patterns, but can be distinguished by the opacity of most of the colours. The XVIIIth dynasty workers also cut and engraved glass, though but rarely. They sometimes produced a clear glass entirely free of colouring, even in a thickness of half an inch. About the XXIIIrd dynasty (750 B.C.) a clear, greenish Prussian blue glass was usual for beads, and continued to Persian times for scarabs (500 B.C.). Rather later, about 400-200 B.C., there appears a large development of opaque glass figures of hieroglyphs, cut and polished, to inlay in wooden caskets and coffins. Opaque red and blue to imitate jasper and lazuli were the most usual colours. Figures of the four genii of the dead and other usual amulets were commonly made by pressing the glass into moulds while heated. A favourite colouring for such was a deep, clear, true blue, backed with opaque white to show up the colour.