A dictionary of Greek and Roman . re evidently to be madefrom straight portions of the trunks or branches oftrees, and the thicker and shorter of them was tobe hollowed. They might then be used in the MUXYCHIA. MURUS. 769 manner represented in a painting on the tomb ofRemeses III. at Thebes (see woodcut, left-handfigure taken from Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 383) ; forthere is no reason to doubt that the Egyptians andthe Greeks fashioned and used their mortars in thesame manner. (See also Wilkinson, vol. iii. , showing three stone mortars with metal pes-tles.) In these paintings
A dictionary of Greek and Roman . re evidently to be madefrom straight portions of the trunks or branches oftrees, and the thicker and shorter of them was tobe hollowed. They might then be used in the MUXYCHIA. MURUS. 769 manner represented in a painting on the tomb ofRemeses III. at Thebes (see woodcut, left-handfigure taken from Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 383) ; forthere is no reason to doubt that the Egyptians andthe Greeks fashioned and used their mortars in thesame manner. (See also Wilkinson, vol. iii. , showing three stone mortars with metal pes-tles.) In these paintings we may observe thethickening of the pestle at both ends, and that twomen pound in one mortar, raising their pestlesalternately as is still the practice in Egypt. Pliny(H. X. xxxvi. 43) mentions the various kinds ofstone selected for making mortars, according to thepurposes to which they were intended to used in pharmacy were sometimes made, ashe says, of Egyptian alabaster. The annexedwoodcut shows the forms of two preserved in the. Egyptian collection of the British Museum, whichexactly answer to this description, being made ofthat material. They do not exceed three inches hiheight: the dotted lines mark the cavity withineach. The woodcut also shows a mortar andpestle, made of baked white clay, which were dis-covered, a. d. 1831, among numerous specimens ofRoman pottery in making the northern approachesto London-bridge (ArcJiaeologia, vol. xxiv. p. 199,plate 44.) Besides the uses already mentioned, the mortarwas employed in pounding charcoal, rubbing itwith glue, in order to make black paint (atramen-tarn, Vitruv. vii. 10. ed. Schneider) ; in makingplaster for the walls of apartments (Plin. H. 55) ; in mixing spices and fragrant herbsand flowers for the use of the kitchen (Athen. ; Brunck, Anal. iii. 51) ; and in metallurgy, asin triturating cinnabar to obtain mercury from itbv sublimation. (Plin. H. N. xxxhi. 41, ) [J. Y.] MOS. [Jus, p. 657
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithwilliam18131893, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840