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body of the vase joins the neck it is ornamented with rows of inscribed papyrus flowers and pendants. On the upper part of the flat band which goes round the vase, is inscribed "May Ptaḥ open a happy new year for

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its owner," and I.

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"May Sechet open a

happy new year for its owner." These vases were probably given as gifts, and they all appear to come from Lower Egypt. The oldest vases known are made of terra-cotta and red earthenware, and are of various shapes and sizes. They were sometimes glazed or painted and varnished, to imitate porphyry, diorite, and variegated stone and glass, and sometimes they were ornamented with floral designs, figures of animals, geometrical patterns, etc., etc. Vases in this material were inscribed, in hieratic or hieroglyphic, with the names and titles of the persons in whose tombs they were found, and sometimes with sepulchral inscriptions. It is not possible, in the absence of inscriptions, to date terra-cotta vases accurately, and all the evidence forthcoming tends to prove that the various kinds of vases which were thought to belong to the XVIIIth or XIXth dynasty belong to the XXIInd or later.

OBJECTS FOR THE TOILET.

The Egyptian lady, in making her toilette, made use of the following objects :

Mirror, in Egyptian?

face," or

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mirrors.

un-hra, "lifting up the Egyptian maa-ḥra, "object for seeing the

face." The mirror was made of bronze, and in shape was nearly round (B.M. No. 2728a), or oval (B.M. No. 2733), or oval flattened (B.M. No. 2732), or pear-shaped (B.M. No. 27286). Mirrors were kept in bronze cases or wooden boxes. The handles were made of ivory (B.M. Nos. 22, 830, 2734), wood, bronze, or faïence (B.M. No. 2736), and were usually in the shape of the lotus in flower. Wooden handles were inlaid with gold (B.M. No. 2728a), or were painted with the colours of the lotus plant and flower (B.M. No. 18,179); they Q

L. M.

Description of mirrors.

were sometimes square, and sometimes terminated in a hawk's head (B.M. No. 2733), or they were carved in the shape of a figure of Bes (B.M. No. 27286). Bronze handles of mirrors were also made in the shape or the lotus plant and flower, but the flat space where the handle widens out into the flower was ornamented with the head of Hathor in relief (B.M. No. 2728a); they were also made in the form of figures of women, with their arms raised (B. M. Nos. 20,773, 2718a). The mirror was further ornamented by supporting the bronze disk on each side with a pair of uræi (B.M. No. 20,756), or with a hawk of Horus (B.M. No. 2731). The metal of which mirrors are made has been shown to be almost pure copper, a very small percentage of tin and other substances being present. The use of mirrors in Egypt appears to be of great antiquity, but the date of their first appearance is not known exactly. The greater diameter of the mirror varies from three to twelve inches.

Tweezers. Pairs of tweezers, for removing hairs from the head or face, were made of bronze, the ends being, at times, in the form of human hands; they vary in length from about two to six inches.

Hair-pins are usually made of wood, bone, ivory, metal, or alabaster, and vary in length and thickness; the heads are sometimes ornamented with gold and silver bands or heads, and sometimes terminate in the figure of an animal or bird.

Combs are made of wood or ivory, and when they have but a single row of teeth the back is carved into serrated edges, and its sides are ornamented with various devices, annular or otherwise. Double combs, i.e., combs with two rows of teeth, have the one row of teeth thicker and longer than the other. Combs used for merely ornamental purposes terminate with figures of animals, etc., etc. The date of the first appearance of combs in Egypt is unknown, and it has been thought that they were not introduced until a comparatively late period.

Fan. The feathers of the fan were inserted in a handle made of wood or ivory, or both, having the same shape as the handles of mirrors; both sides of the handle were

sometimes ornamented with heads of Hathor in relief (B.M.

No. 20,767).

2

vases and

stibium

Kohl pots. Of all the necessaries for the toilet these Stibium objects are the most commonly found, and the varieties tubes. known are very many and very interesting. The object of the kohl jar was to hold the kohl, or stibium, or antimony, or copper, with which ladies were wont to stain the eyelids and eyebrows. The simplest form consisted of a hollow tube of alabaster, steatite,' glass, wood, or ivory, from three to six inches high; alabaster tubes are usually uninscribed (B.M. No. 2574), wooden tubes are made in the shape of a column with a palm leaf capital (B.M. No. 2591), ivory or bone tubes are Different sometimes made in the form of figures of Bes (B.M. forms of No. 2571), and sometimes are ornamented with spirals vases. (B.M. No. 6184). Faïence tubes are white, blue, or green, and have inscriptions on them in black; fine examples of this class are B.M. No. 25726, inscribed with the prenomen of Amenophis III., and the name of his wife Thi; and B.M. No. 2573, inscribed with the prenomen of Tut-anch-Amen, and the name of his wife Anch-nes-Amen. B.M. No. 2589, is a fine example of kohl tube in glass, made in the form of a column with a palm leaf capital. Kohl tubes were sometimes made of the common reed, and carried in a leather bag (B.M. No. 12,539); the single tube was sometimes represented as being held by a monkey or some other animal (B.M. No. 21,895). The tube was often formed of a hollow sunk in a jar made of alabaster, stone, steatite, granite, or porphyry; steatite jars are glazed, and ornamented with

and in hollow work (B.M. No. 2645). Such jars often had the rim, which supported the cover, turned separately, and in the centre of the cover, inside, a small boss was made to enable it to rest firmly on the jar; these jars rested upon square stands supported by four legs. The outsides of porphyry jars are sometimes ornamented with raised figures of apes and uræi. Kohl jars had sometimes two tubes, and Stibium

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vases

93 14 having

i B.M. No. 2736 is inscribed "Menthu-em-ḥāt, son of Heq-ab, lord of watchful devotion."

2 See B.M. No. 24,391, made of light blue glass banded with gold.

more than one tube.

Different kinds of eye-paint used at different

were made of wood, with a movable cover on a pivot (B.M. No. 2595), of obsidian, with a figure of Bes in relief (B.M. No. 2599), of ivory, with each tube in the form of a lotus column (B.M. 22,839), and of stone. Kohl pots with three tubes were also made, and an interesting example in terracotta is B.M. No. 2612, which is in the form of a "triple" crown. Kohl pots with four and five tubes are very common in wood, and several examples exist in faïence. B.M. No. 2605 is inscribed on each tube,' and contains two, or more, different powders; and B.M. 2606a, with five tubes, probably a votive offering by a friend or relative of the deceased Amāsis, a scribe and overseer of works, is inscribed :—

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The following texts are inscribed upon a remarkable brown wood stibium-holder, in the possession of Sir Francis Grenfell, G.C.B. It contains five tubes, each of which held

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2 These inscriptions show that one kind of eye-paint was to be used from the first to the fourth month of the inundation season; a second from the first to the fourth month of the season of coming forth; a third from the first to the fourth month of the period of growing; and also that a fourth was to be used every day.

a different coloured substance; on one side is a full-face figure of Bes, and on the other an ape. It came from Dêr

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A set of four or more kohl tubes were also formed by the compartments of a wooden box which was generally inlaid with ivory. The studs in kohl tubes were used for fastening the cover.

stick.

The stick with which the kohl was applied to the eyes was The kohl made of wood, bronze, glass, etc., and was thicker and more rounded at one end than at the other. The thick end was moistened, and dipped in the powder in the tube, and then drawn along the eyelid; the stick generally remained in the tube, but often a special cavity, either between or behind the tubes, was prepared for it.

The black powder in the tube was called in Egyptian • mestem (var. mest'emut), Copt.

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COHLL, CTHUL, Arab., whence the word Kohl, Gr. σTíμμ, stibium; it seems to have been the sesquisulphuret of antimony, but sulphide of lead, oxide of copper, black oxide of manganese, and other powdered substances were also used. The act of painting the eyes with kohl was called semțet, and the part painted semti.

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The custom of painting the eyelids, or the parts immediately under them, is contemporary with the earliest dynasties,

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