. Glass. enturies. Such little evidence as there is, especially a fewpassages in Roman writers, would point to Alexandria,above all other towns, as the principal home of the glassindustry in the first centuries before our era. We know,however, of no find of blown glass in Egypt, previousto later Roman or Coptic times. The Ptolemaic glassfound at Tanis and elsewhere differs, as we have seen,little from the old type; and even at what is probably alater period we have found the same old type of glass inuse at Denderah for inlaying (see above, p. 32). It was notthe Egyptians themselves that favour
. Glass. enturies. Such little evidence as there is, especially a fewpassages in Roman writers, would point to Alexandria,above all other towns, as the principal home of the glassindustry in the first centuries before our era. We know,however, of no find of blown glass in Egypt, previousto later Roman or Coptic times. The Ptolemaic glassfound at Tanis and elsewhere differs, as we have seen,little from the old type; and even at what is probably alater period we have found the same old type of glass inuse at Denderah for inlaying (see above, p. 32). It was notthe Egyptians themselves that favoured the new process—by them the new glass was doubtless rejected as some-thing exotic and unholy. The Greeks, on the other hand,seem never to have taken any interest in the material—the fused stone, as they called it, was at the best buta poor substitute for the native minerals that it imitated. Perhaps after all there is an element of truth in theprevalent Roman tradition, and we should not be far44 /.
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