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Ancient Egyptian Glass and Glazes in the Brooklyn Museum by Elizabeth Riefstahl (review)

1970; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tech.1970.a894159

1097-3729

Paul N. Perrot,

Ancient Egypt and Archaeology

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 299 anced. Having taught the history of technology to undergraduates and knowing the concerns of scholarly researchers, he succinctly identifies the salient and significant contribution of each work. For example, he says of Dirk Struik’s Yankee Science in the Making, “a long, generally unfocused, but not inconsiderable account of science and technology.” Of W. H. G. Armytage’s The Rise of the Technocrats, Ferguson ob­ serves, after noting that reviewers considered it weird and poor, that “nevertheless, a great amount of material bearing on attitudes toward technology . . . may be pursued through the reference notes.” Would that all authors had reviewers as fair-minded as Ferguson. Ferguson’s annotations sometimes amount to short essays; this is often the case in the sections on reference wrnrks, government publications, and manuscripts. For example, Ferguson suggests how U.S. special con­ sular reports might be used by historians of technology; in a half page he highlights technological sources in the parliamentary papers of Great Britain; and he includes a page on Abraham Rees’s Cyclopaedia (“the richest work in English for the technology of the period” [1819]). Un­ doubtedly, many historians will find reading—not simply referring to— Ferguson’s bibliography richly rewarding. Thomas P. Hughes* Ancient Egyptian Glass and Glazes in the Brooklyn Museum. By Eliza­ beth Riefstahl. Wilbour Monographs, vol. 1. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1968. Pp. 118; 13 color plates; 100 black and white illustra­ tions. $9.00. Though similar in title, this impressive volume cannot be compared with its predecessor, Glass and Glazes from Ancient Egypt, the twentyfour -page booklet published in 1948 while Mrs. Riefstahl was associate curator of the Department of Ancient Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The volume reviewed here is a catalog of one of the distinguished col­ lections of Egyptian glazed and glassy materials in the United States. The text consists of introductory remarks by Mrs. Riefstahl followed by the plates and concludes with catalog descriptions and a commentary. In addition, the volume contains a chronological chart, a summary bib­ liography, a useful concordance between catalog numbers and accession numbers, and the numbers and locations of the comparative pieces dis­ cussed in the text. Since Egypt is one of the reputed birthplaces of glassmaking and since this volume deals with some of the earliest known Egyptian ves­ sels, its importance is evident. Mrs. Riefstahl’s introduction describes briefly the basic methods of manufacturing glass and makes some sug­ gestions concerning the manner in which the material was first observed * Dr. Hughes, of Southern Methodist University, edited The Development of Western Technology since 1500 and the works of Samuel Smiles. His biography of Elmer Sperry will be published this year. 300 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE and then duplicated. She places the occurrence of the first glazed steatite and quartz in the predynastic period, about 4000 b.c. She then discusses the terminology, the meaning of the words “frit,” “Egyptian blue,” “glass paste,” and “pâte de verre.” While deploring the inaccurate ter­ minology often used in the past, she accepts the use of the word “faience” (for lack of a better term) to describe a mixture of ground quartz or quartz sand held together by an alkaline binder which “when proper proportions are used . . . can be modeled by hand, cast in a mold or, like pottery, thrown on a wheel.” She assigns the first occurrence of faience to the predynastic period, shortly after the occurrence of the first glazed steatite beads. Mrs. Riefstahl then turns to the evolution of glass and to the appear­ ance of the first objects made entirely of glass, which can be dated no earlier than the reign of Tuthmosis I, 1525-1512 b.c. In her text she re­ frains from discussing the possible implications of the development of Mesopotamian glass, at a roughly comparable period, and the extensive literary evidence that is now being reinterpreted by Professor A. Leo Oppenheim in a volume which is now in press. The virtual absence of glass from roughly the twentieth dynasty on to the 6th century b.c. is mentioned but not discussed. This, undoubt­ edly, remains one of the most puzzling features in the history...