The invention is by all antiquity attributed to the Tyrians. When Pliny wrote there were still histories of Tyre extant; still traditions as well as interpretations of the hieroglyphics. It is difficult to imagine that if it had been Egyptian, it should have been given to any other people; and, if not Tyrian, claimed by and surrendered to them. Even if communicated to the Egyptians at the period when it figures on their walls, it may have been for many previous centuries the exclusive possession of Tyre, for the Phœnicians were of equal date with the Egyptians.[112] The monuments of Egypt were not pictures of common things, but records of extraordinary ones. They were designed to illustrate the lives of kings and heroes; representing their triumphal entries; their trophies; the tribute offered; the captives brought home; the arts they introduced; the inventions and incidents of their time. We have in them a few repetitions: elephants are there: they are seen but once; a cart but once; brick-making once; glass-blowing once, and that is in the reign of Sesu Sesen, consequently I will not say that this record proves, but that it at least suggests, that up to that time the manufacture was unknown in Egypt. The representation is not, however, of glass-making; it is of blowing only: no where is glass-making seen. If the Egyptians had the art of blowing glass only, they must have imported the raw material. The monument of Carnac enumerates among the tribute paid to Tathmes III., “ingots of enamel;” and this tribute was paid four hundred years after the glass-blowing figures on the walls. The material for glass abounded in Egypt. They were dexterous in preparing mineral compounds for colouring: had they understood the manufacture they would not have imported it; and had the manufacture been known, we should have seen it figured with the blowing. But the Egyptians, having learnt the art of blowing, would desire to have the unmanufactured material in order to adapt it to their own fashions. This is entirely confirmed by the description given by the Egyptian priests to Herodotus; for it must be after them that he designates the ornaments of the sacred crocodiles (which we know to be glass), λίθανα χύτα, _fused stones_. This tribute came from “Maharama,” or Mesopotamia, in the first cities of which the Phœnicians had establishments. Having set aside the claims put in for Egypt, no other people making any, I have, I think, restored the invention to the Phœnicians. A new claim has now been set up for the Assyrians, according to Mr. Layard. “They had acquired the art of making glass. Several small bottles or vases of elegant shape in this material were found at Nimroud and Konyunjik.”[113] But, strange to say, in the very spot where he came upon the first glass vase he found pottery, with letters which he supposes to be Phœnician.