History of Egyptian Pottery
ABOUT 2700 B.C., after the dispersion of the family
of men in the Euphrates valley, a small number found
their way along the shores of the sea, or pushed an
adventurous expedition through Arabia across the
deserts, and discovered a land of abundant fruitfulness,
watered by a mighty river, and dark with the green
foliage of fruit-bearing palms. The beasts of the field
and the birds of the air had preceded them. Food was
abundant. Nature was lavish in her gifts. The sunshine
was perpetual, scarcely a cloud obscuring it--only those
vast silvery clouds of millions of water-fowl of every
species, then, as until within our own memory, floated
and circled in innumerable quantity and variety through
the day, making Egypt, from sea to cataract, a
"land shadowing with wings."
The small colony increased with great rapidity.
Either the peculiarity of their life, or hereditary
ability, rapidly advanced them in the arts above the
rest of the human family, from whom they were isolated
by sea and desert. The natural surroundings, the birds
above, the luxuriant flowers and foliage of the vast
morasses in the lower country, the solemn, barren
mountains on each side of the narrow valley, entered
into their conceptions of beauty and guided their
imaginations. They retained the monotheistic religion of
their ancestors for several centuries. In a very short
time, without immigration, their numbers increased, by
ordinary generation, to millions. The patriarchal form
of government became a monarchy. The monarchy had its
vicissitudes, was divided and reunited again and again,
but the national civilization remained pre-eminent for
twenty centuries. Their wise men were learned. The whole
population were well educated. Whatever was important in
history was recorded for all the people to read. Books,
poetry, philosophy, history, abounded. When at length
they came into contact with other races, their
superiority imposed on these the characteristics of
Egyptian art. But the end of this long and unparalleled
history came. From the land of their common origin, the
Persians descended on the Nile valley, and overthrew the
monuments of the Egyptians.
The Greek civilization, which Egypt had nurtured in
its childhood, overcame her by force of arms, without
compensating her with the gifts of Greek art, and the
national existence perished under the exhausting away of
avaricious Rome.
Centuries afterward, on the sands of the desert along
the Nile valley, the exquisite creations of a new art,
coming again from the Asiatic home of the race, sprang
up in the sunshine to mark the burial-places of Saracen
rulers of Egypt; but, too beautiful to endure, are now
melancholy ruins, splendid even as they crumble to the
desert sand.
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Introduction
| History of Egyptian Pottery |
Early Egyptian Pottery |
Types of Pottery | Artwork of Egyptian Pottery |
Users Of Egyptian Pottery | Examples Of Egyptian Pottery
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