The scarabæus is very often met with on the breastplates. All these symbols and images were employed for the supposed benefit of the dead, either to save them from evil, or as a direct means of bringing good, and can only be understood through an acquaintance with mythology. Rings of various colors appear properly to belong to the same category of ornaments of the dead. Other sepulchral figures were deposited with the deceased, besides those of the protecting gods. These were supposed to aid the departed in his labors in the future state, and are invariably small representations of a mummied figure, partially covered with hieroglyphics. Like many of the other figures and objects, they are generally of the beautiful Egyptian blue. In the example (Fig. 41) given on the following page, the figure of a bird with human head, appears upon the breast. It is an emblem of the soul leaving or returning to the body. The more usual form is that seen in the central figure in the engraving (Fig. 42), with long beard, a pickaxe and hoe in either hand, and having a cord in the right hand which is crossed to the left, and allows the cord to pass over the left shoulder. At the end of this cord is a bag or basket, which is faintly discernible on the shoulder of the figure on the right. The hieroglyphics are passages from the Ritual, in compliance with which these figures were made. Balls, draughtsmen, and toys were also made of glazed pottery. All the figures and ornaments to which reference has been made were turned out of moulds, the friability of the paste not permitting its being thrown. [Illustration: Fig. 41.--Egyptian Mummy Figure. Style, XIXth Dynasty. (Way Coll., Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)] For the same reason the glazed vases are diminutive, but often very beautiful, and intended for purely ornamental purposes. They are of different shapes and sizes, generally a few inches in height, and some of them illustrate the peculiar ideas entertained by the Egyptians of personal beauty. One of their customs was that of darkening the eyes with a black powder, sometimes held in a small case resembling a series of reeds. The toilet is otherwise represented by a variety of boxes, jars, bottles, small vases, and oil flasks. The latter are unique, and sometimes elegant in shape, and supply good examples of the greenish glazed-ware to which reference has been made. Many of the bowls evidently used by the wealthy are of a finer and closer paste, and bear very characteristic ornamentation of flowers, fish, hieroglyphics, or of lines only. Their uses can only be conjectured from their shapes. The inscriptions sometimes point to their owners, and at others to the place of fabrication. The Egyptians also resorted to a process of glazing vases, figures, rings, and other articles for which pottery was usually employed, made of a variety of hard schists. These, however, as not being properly potter’s ware, are here passed over.