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Gem

-Engraving in Greek Lands

We must now turn to the history of gem-engraving in Greek lands. The excavations in Crete in the first years of the 20th century revealed a previously unknown culture, which lasted on the lowest computation for more than two thousand years, and was only interrupted by the national upheavals which preceded the opening of Greek history proper. (See Crete; Archaeology; and Aegean Civilization.) Throughout the whole period the products of the gem-engraver occupy an important place among the surviving remains. It must suffice, however, in this place to indicate the chief groups of stones.

The earliest engraved stones of Minoan Crete are three-sided prism seals, made of a soft steatite, native in S.E. Crete (Journ. .of Hellenic Studies, xvii. p. 328). These are incised with pictorial signs evidently belonging to a rudimentary hieroglyphic system, and are dated before 3000 B.C. At a period placed by A. J. Evans between 2800 and 2 200 the method was fully systematized and employed on the signets, as well as on tablets and other materials. This development of the hieroglyphic system was accompanied by an increasing power of working in hard material, and cornelian and chalcedony superseded soft steatite (Journ. ,of Hell. Studies, xvii. p. 334) Towards 2000 B.C. a highly developed linear form began to supersede the pictorial signs. It is abundant on the tablets, but the gems thus inscribed are comparatively rare. The linear form in turn died out some six hundred years later.

The signs of the pictorial script incised on the gems are representations of objects, expressed with precision, but giving little scope for the higher side of the gem-engraver's art. Simultaneously, however, with the use of the script, a high degree of skill was acquired by the engravers in rendering animal and human forms. Scenes occur of ritual observance, hunting, animal life, and strange compounded forms of demons. The excavations did not yield a large number of original gems of this class, but a great number of clay sealings from such signets were discovered. That they were synchronous with the use of the forms of script described above is proved by the fact that in the palace at Cnossus deposits were found, both in the linear and the hieroglyphic script, sealed with these signets, the seal impressions being again endorsed in the script (Brit. School Annual, xi. pp. 56, 62). For a remarkable group of sealings found at Zakro 'see' Journ. of Hell. Studies, xxii. pll. 6-Io. The finest naturalistic engravings are placed towards the close of the " Mid-Minoan " and beginning of the " Late-Minoan " periods (about 2200-1800 B.C.). During the progress of the " LateMinoan " period the subjects tended to assume a more formal and heraldic character. The forms of stones in favour were the disk convex on each side (lenticular or lentoid stones), and during the " Mid-Minoan " period, elaborate signets in the form of modern fob-seals. Apart from the use of intaglios for sealing, the excavations have shown that the Cretan lapidaries were largely employed in the working of gems for purposes of decoration. Fragments of lapis lazuli and crystal for inlaying (the crystals having coloured designs on their lower surfaces) were found in the throne room at Cnossus; the royal gaming-board, also from the palace at Cnossus, had inlaid crystal disks and plaques. The workshop of a lapidary, with unfinished works in marble, steatite, jasper and beryl, was also found within the precincts of the palace (Brit. School Annual, vii. pp. 20, 77). Examples were also found of work in relief, substantially anticipating the art of cameo-cutting.

The area over which the Cretan influence extended was wide. Its manifestations in Greek lands proper, first revealed by Schliemann's excavation of the royal tombs of Mycenae, ran parallel with and outlasted the later periods of the Cretan culture to which it stood in close relation (see Aegean Civilization). Its gems and intaglio works in gold are known to us from the finds at Mycenae, and at analogous sites, such as Menidi, Vaphio and Ialysus. They have much in common with the finer class of Cretan stones already described. The engraved gems fall principally into two groups in respect of form, namely, the lenticular (or lentoid) stones already mentioned, and (more rarely) glandular stones, so called from their resemblance to a glans or sling bolt. A Cretan fresco shows a figure wearing an agate lenticular stone suspended from the left wrist. The finer specimens of the Aegean gems are engraved with the wheel and the point in hard stones, such as chalcedony, amethyst, sard, rock-crystal and haematite. A lapidary's workshop similar to that at Cnossus has been found at Mycenae, with a store of unused gems, and an unfinished lenticular stone (Ephemeris Archaiologike, 1897, p. 121). The characteristic of the Aegean engraver is the free expression of living forms. His subjects are figures of animals, men and demons in combat, and heraldic compositions recalling the Gate of Lions at Mycenae. It was almost inevitable that the scarab should be found in the Cretan and Aegean deposits, but in such cases we have the Egyptian scarab directly imported, and not, as at a later period, nonEgyptian adaptations of the form. The cylinder also (except in Cyprus, the borderland between east and west) only occurs as an importation, and not as a currently manufactured shape.

The" Island Gems.

The Aegean culture was swept away probably by that dimly seen upheaval which separated Mycenaean from historical Greece, and which is commonly known as the Dorian invasion. One of the few facts which indicate a certain continuity of tradition in later Greece is this, that we again find the same characteristic forms, the glandular and lenticular stones, in the cemeteries, of Melos and elsewhere. It is only recently that archaeologists have learnt to distinguish between the later lenticular and glandular stones " of the Greek Islands," as they are commonly called, and those of the Aegean age. Engravings of the later class are worked in soft materials only, such as steatite. They have not the power of expressing action peculiar to the Aegean artist. In general, the continuity of tradition between the gems of the Mycenaean and the historical periods is in respect of shape rather than of art. The subjects are for the most part decorative forms (the Gryphon, the winged Sphinx, the winged horse, &c.) in course of development into characters of Greek myth.

The Phoenicians and the Greeks

About the end of the 8th and beginning of the 7th century B.C. the Phoenicians began to exercise a powerful influence as intermediaries between Egypt and Assyria and the Mediterranean. Porcelain and other FIG. 2. - Lenticular RockCrystal from Ialysus. (Brit. Mus.) FIG. 3. - Lenticular Sard from Ialysus. (Brit. Mus.) imitations of Egyptian ornaments, and especially of Egyptian scarabs, are found in great numbers on such sites as Amathus in Cyprus, Camirus in Rhodes, in Etruria, and at Tharros in Sardinia. The Egyptian hieroglyphics are imitated with mistakes, the figures introduced are stiff and formal, the animals as a rule heraldic. The scarab form, which in Egypt had had its sacred significance, was now become nothing more than a convenient shape for an abject of jewelry or for the reverse side of a stone. It was adopted from the Phoenicians both by Greeks and Etruscans. By the Greeks, with whom we are at present concerned, its use was occasional, and about 500 B.C. it was superseded by the scarabaeoid. Under this name two forms, somewhat similar but independent in origin, are usually grouped without sufficient discrimination. The scarabaeoid proper is a simplification of the scarab, effected by the omission of all details of the beetle. But many of the stones known as scarabaeoids, with a flat and oval base and a convex back, are in respect of their form probably of North Syrian origin (so Furtwangler). The earliest examples of archaic Greek gem-engraving (other than the later " Island gems " already described) are works of Ionian art. They show a desire, only limited by imperfect power of expression, to represent the human figure, though the particular theme may be a god or other mythical personages. By the beginning of the 5th century the engravers had reached the FIG. 4. Victory. FIG. 5. - Citharist. FIG. 6. - Head Early Greek Scarab. Early Greek Scaraof Eos. (Brit.

(Brit. Mus.) baeoid. (Brit. Mus.) Mus.) point of full development, and the scarabaeoids of the time embody its results. As an example of fine scarabaeoids the Woodhouse intaglio of a seated citharist (fig.5; Cat. of Gems in Brit. Mus. No. 555) may be quoted as perhaps the very finest example of Greek gem-engraving that has come down to us. It would stand early in the 5th century B.C., a date which would also suit the head of Eos from Ithome in Messenia (fig. 6). The number, however, of fine scarabaeoids known to us has been considerably increased in recent years. They are marked by a broad and simple treatment, which attains a large effect without excessive minuteness or laboured detail. In these respects the style has something in common with the reliefs of the 5th century.

Literary History

The literary references to the early gemengravers are no longer of the same importance as before in view of the fuller knowledge we possess as to the quality of early gemengraving, but it is necessary that they should be taken into account.

The records of gem-engravers in Greece begin in the island of Samos, where Mnesarchus, the father of the philosopher Pythagoras, earned by his art more of praise than of wealth. " Not to carry the image of a god on your seal," was a saying of Pythagoras; and, whatever his reason for it may have been, it is interesting to observe him founding a maxim on his father's profession of gem-engraving (Diogenes Laert. viii. I, 17). From Samos also came Theodorus, who made for Polycrates the seal of emerald (Herodotus iii. 41), which, according to the curious story, was cast in vain into the deep sea on purpose to be lost. That the design on it was a lyre, as is stated in one authority, is unlikely, at least if we accept Benndorf's ingenious interpretation of Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 83). He has suggested that the portrait statue of Theodorus made by himself was in all probability a figure holding in one hand a graving tool, and in the other, not, as previously supposed, a quadriga so diminutive that a fly could cover it with its wings, but a scarab with the engraving of a quadriga on its face (Zeitschrift fiir die osterreich. Gymnasien, 1873, pp. 401-411), whence it is not unreasonable to conclude that this scarab in fact represented the famous seal of Polycrates. Shortly after 600 B.C. there was a law of Solon's forbidding engravers to retain impressions of the seals they made, and this date would fall in roundly with that of Theodorus and Mnesarchus, as if there had in fact been at that time a special activity and unusual skill. That the use of seals had been general long before, in Cretan and Mycenaean times, we have seen above, and it is singular to find, as Pliny points out (xxxiii. 4), no direct mention of seals in Homer, not even in the passage (Iliad, vi. 168) where Bellerophon himself carries the tablets on which were written the orders against his life. From the time of Theodorus to that of Pyrgoteles in the 4th century B.C. is a long blank as to names, but not altogether as to gems, the production of which may be judged to have been carried on assiduously from the constant necessity of seals for every variety of purpose. The references to them in Aristophanes, for example, and the lists of them in the ancient inventories of treasures in the Parthenon and the Asclepieion at Athens confirm this frequent usage during the period in question. The mention of a public seal for authenticating state documents also becomes frequent in the inscriptions. In the reign of Alexander the Great we meet the name of Pyrgoteles, of whom Pliny records that he was no doubt the most famous engraver of his time, and that Alexander decreed that Pyrgoteles alone should engrave his portrait. Nothing else is known of Pyrgoteles. A portrait of Alexander in the British Museum (No. 2307), purporting to be signed by him, is palpably modern.

From literary sources we also learn the names of the engravers Apollonides, Chronius and Dioscorides, but the date of the lastmentioned only is certain. He is said to have made an excellent portrait of Augustus, which was used as a seal by that emperor in the latter part of his reign and also by his successors. Inscriptions on extant gems make it probable that Dioscorides was a native of Aegeae in Cilicia, and that three sons, Hyllos, Herophilus and Eutyches, followed their father's occupation. We have also a few scattered notices of amateurs and collectors of gems, but it will be seen that for the whole period of classical antiquity the literary notices give little aid, and we must return to the gems.

Early Inscribed Gems. - Various early gems are inscribed with proper names, which may be supposed to indicate either the artist or the owner of the gem. In some cases there is no ambiguity, e.g. on a scarab is inscribed, " I am the seal of Thersis. Do not open me "; and a scarabaeoid (fig. 7) is inscribed, " Syries made me." But when we have the name alone, the general principle on which we must distinguish between owner and artist is that the name of the owner is naturally meant to be conspicuous (as in a gem in the British Museum inscribed in large letters with the name of Isagor[ as ]), while the name of an artist is naturally inconspicuous and subordinate to the design.

The early engravers known to us by their signatures are: Syries, who was author of the modified scarab in the British Museum, mentioned above, with a satyr's head in place of the beetle, and a citharist on the base - a work of the middle of the 6th century; Semon, who engraved a black jasper scarab now at Berlin, with a nude woman kneeling at a fountain filling her pitcher, of the close of the 6th century; Epimenes, who was the author of an admirable chalcedony scarabaeoid of a nude youth restraining a spirited horse - formerly in the Tyszkiewicz Collection, and of about the beginning of the 5th century. But better known to us than any of these artists is the 5th-century engraver, Dexamenus of Chios, of whose work four examples survive, viz.: 1 For Nos. 1-4 see Furtwangler, pl. 14; for Nos. 2-4 see Evans, Rev. archeologique, xxxii. (1898) pl. 8.

F IG. 7 - Scarabaeoid by Syries. (Brit. Mus.) 1. A chalcedony scarabaeoid from Greece, in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, with a lady at her toilet, attended by her maid. Inscribed AE2AMENOL, and with the name of the lady, Mikh/. 2. An agate with a stork standing on one leg, inscribed AE2AMEN02 simply.

3. A chalcedony with the figure of a stork flying, and inscribed in two lines, the letters carefully disposed above each other, AE2AMENOI Ehoie Xio/.

4. A gem, apparently by the same Dexamenus, is a cornelian formerly belonging to Admiral Soteriades in Athens, and subsequently in the collection of Dr Arthur Evans. It has a portrait head, bearded and inscribed AE2AMENOI Eiioie. The design of a stork flying occurs on an agate scarab in the British Museum, from the old Cracherode Collection,and therefore beyond all suspicion of having been copied from the more recently discovered Kertch gem.

For the period immediately following that early prime to which the gems above described belong, our materials are less copious. Some of the finest examples are derived from the Greek tombs in the Crimea and South Russia. Reckoned among the best of the Crimean gems, and that is equivalent to saying among the best of all gems, are the following: (1) a burnt scarabaeoid with an eagle carrying off a hare; (2) a gem with scarab border and the figure of a youth seated playing on the trigonon, very much resembling the Woodhouse intaglio (both engraved, Compte rendu, 1871, pl. vi. figs. 16, 17). In these, and in almost all Greek gems belonging to this period of excellence, the material is of indifferent quality, consisting of agate, chalcedony or cornelian, just as in the older specimens. Brilliant colour and translucency are as yet not a necessary element, and accordingly the design is worked out solely with a view to its own artistic merit. The scarab tends to die out. The scarabaeoid in its turn is abandoned for the simple ring stone. The subjects chosen take by degrees a different character. Aphrodite (nude), FIG. 9. - Amethyst Pendant. (Brit. Mus.) Eros, children and women tend to replace the older and severer themes. The motives of 4th-century sculpture appear by degrees on the gems.

Etruscan Gems

At this point it is convenient to discuss the gem-engraving of the Etruscans, which came into being towards the close of the archaic period of Greek art. In the early Etruscan deposits, such as that of the Poliedrara tomb in the British Museum (towards 600 B.C.), we find nothing except Phoenician imports of porcelain or stone scarabs, both strongly Egyptian in character. During the 6th century a few of the semi-Egyptian stones of Sardinia make their appearance. But in the latter part of the century these oriental products tend to die out, and we have in their place the native works of Etruscan artists. These engravings stand in the closest relation to Greek works of the close of the 6th century and many imported Greek scarabs also occur.

The Etruscan scarab has its beetle form more minutely engraved than that of the Greeks. It is further distinguished in the better examples, alike from the Greek and the Egyptian form, by a small border of a sort of petal ornament round the lower edge of the beetle. Like the earlier Greek scarabs it has the cable border round the design, but the border continued in use in Etruria when it had been abandoned in Greece. The scarabaeoid form does not occur in Etruscan deposits. Etruscan engraving begins when Greek art was approaching maturity,. with studies, sometimes stiff and cramped, of the heroic nude form. Some of the Greek deities such as Athena and Hermes occur, together with the winged personages of Greek mythology. To the heroic types the names of Greek legend are attached, with modifications of form, such as Ttte for Tydeus, and Kaiine for Capaneus. Sometimes the names are appropriate and sometimes they are assigned at random. The subjects include certain favourite incidents in the Trojan and Theban cycles (e.g. the death of Capaneus); myths of Heracles; athletes, horsemen, a few scenes of daily life. Certain schemes of composition are frequent. In particular, a figure too large for the field, standing and bending over, is made to serve for many types. The engraving of the finer Etruscan gems is minute and precise, marked with elegance and command of the material. Its fault is its want of original inspiration. Special mention must be made of a very numerous group of cornelian scarabs, roughly engraved for the most part with cup-shaped sinkings (whence they are known as gems a globolo tondo) roughly joined together by furrows. Notwithstanding their apparent rudeness, these gems are shown, by the conditions in which they are found, to be comparatively late works of the 4th century. Furtwangler ingeniously suggests that the rough execution was intended to emphasize the shining surfaces of the cup-sinkings, rather than to produce any particular intaglio subject. (For an elaborate classification of the Etruscan scarabs see Furtwangler, Geschichte, p. 170.) The Cameos. - After the beginning of the regal period, in the 4th century B.C., the introduction of more splendid materials from the East was turned to good account by the development of the cameo, i.e. of gem-carving in relief (for the origin of the word see Cameo). But in its simpler forms the principle of the cameo necessarily dates from the beginning of the art. Thus a lion in rock-crystal was found in the very early royal tomb of Nagada (de Morgan, Recherches, Tombeau de Negadah, p. 193). The Egyptian scarab, on its rounded side, had been naturalistically carved in relief in beetle form. Steatite engravings in relief (notably the harvest festival vase from Hagia Triada) were found in the Cretan deposits. Subjects are found carved in the round in hard stone in Mycenaean graves. When we come to historical Greece and to Etruria the cameo of later times is anticipated by various attempts to modify the traditional form of the scarab. An example in cornelian was found at Orvieto in 1874 in a tomb along with vases dating from the beginning of the 5th century B.C., and it will be seen from the engraving of this gem (Arch. Zeit., 1877, pl. xi. fig. 3) that, while the design on the face is in intaglio, the half-length figure of a Gorgon on the back is engraved in relief. Compare a cornelian fragment, apparently cut from the back of a scarabaeoid, now in the British Museum. As further examples of the same rare form of cameo, the following gems in the British Museum may be mentioned: - (r) a cornelian cut from back of a scarabaeoid, with head of Gorgon surrounded by wings; (2) cornelian scarabaeoid: Gorgon running to left; on face of the gem an intaglio of Thetis giving armour to Achilles; (3) steatite scarabaeoid, already mentioned, signed by Syries, head of a satyr, full face, with intaglio of citharist. There is, however, no evidence at present available to show that the cameo proper had been introduced in Greece before the time of Alexander. The earliest examples found in known conditions are derived from Crimean tombs of the middle of the 3rd century B.C.

Among the most splendid of ancient cameos are those at St Petersburg and Vienna, each representing a monarch of the Diadochi and his consort (Furtwangler, pl. 53). There is much controversy as to the persons represented, but the cameos are probably works of the 3rd century.

The materials which ancient artists used for cutting into cameos were chiefly those siliceous minerals which, under a variety of names, present various strata or bands of two or more distinct colours. The minerals, under different names, are.

FIG. 8. - Greek Sard. 5th Cent. B.C. (Brit. Mus.) essentially the chalcedonic variety of quartz, and the differences of colour they present are due to the presence of variable proportions of iron and other foreign ingredients. These banded stones, when cut parallel to the layers of different colours, and when only two coloured bands - white and black, or sometimes white and black and brown - are present, are known as onyxes; but when they have with the onyx bands layers of cornelian or sard, they are termed sardonyxes. The sardonyx, which was the favourite stone of ancient cameo-engravers, and the material in which their masterpieces were cut, was procured from India, and the increased intercourse with the East after the death of Alexander the Great had a marked influence on the development of the art.

Akin in their nature to the great regal cameos, which from the nature of the case are cut on a nearly plane surface, are the cups and vases cut out of a homogeneous stone and therefore capable of being worked in the round. A few examples of such works survive. The most famous are the Farnese Tazza and the cup of the Ptolemies. The Tazza, which is now in the National Museum at Naples, was bought by Lorenzo de' Medici from Pope Paul II. in 1471. It is a large shallow bowl of sardonyx, 8 in. in diameter. On its exterior surface is a Gorgoneion upon an aegis; in the interior is an allegorical design, relating to the Nile flood. The cup of the Ptolemies, formerly known as the cup of St Denis, is preserved in the Cabinet des Medailles of the French. Bibliotheque Nationale. It is a cup 44 in. high and 51 in. in diameter, carved out of oriental sardonyx, and richly decorated with Dionysiac emblems and attributes in relief.

The Cameo in the Roman Empire. - During the 1st century of the empire the engraver's art alike in cameo and in intaglio was at a high degree of excellence. The artist in cameo took full advantage of his rich opportunities in the way of sumptuous materials, and of the requirements of an imperial court. The two most famous examples of this art which have come down to the present day are the Great Agate of the Sainte Chapelle in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and the Augustus Cameo in the Vienna Collection. The former was pledged among other valuables in 1244 by Baldwin II. of Constantinople to Saint Louis. It is mentioned in 1344 as " Le Camahieu," having been sent in that year to Rome for the inspection of Pope Clement VI. It is a sardonyx of five layers of irregular shape, like all classical gems, measuring 12 in. by 102 in. It represents on its upper part the deified members of the Julian house. The centre is occupied with the reception FIG. Io. - Actaeon. Fragof Germanicus on his return from his anent of Sardonyx Cameo. great German campaign by the em- (Brit. Mus.) peror Tiberius and his mother Livia.

The lower division is filled with a group of captives in attitudes expressive of woe and deep dejection. The Vienna gem (Gemma augustea), an onyx of two layers measuring 8$ in. by 72, is a work of still greater artistic interest. The upper portion is occupied with an allegorical representation of the coronation of Augustus, the emperor being represented as Jupiter with Livia as the goddess Roma at his side. In the composition deities of Earth and Sea, and several members of the family of Augustus, are introduced; on the exergue or lower portion are Roman soldiers preparing a trophy, barbarian captives and female figures. This gem was in the 15th century at the abbey of St Sernin at Toulouse. According to tradition it had been placed there by Charlemagne. It came into the possession of the emperor Rudolph II. in the 16th century for the enormous sum of 1 2,000 gold ducats. The principal cameo in the collection of the British Museum was acquired at the final dispersion of the Marlborough Collection in 1899. It is a sardonyx measuring 81 in. by 6 in., and appears to represent a Roman emperor and empress in the forms of Serapis and Isis. Here also, in imperial times as in the Hellenistic period, side by side with the great cameos, we meet with works carved out in the round. Noted examples of such work are the Brunswick vase (at Brunswick), with the subject of Triptolemus; the Berlin vase with the lustration of a new-born imperial prince; and the Waddesdon vase in the British Museum, with a vine in relief set in a rich enamelled Renaissance mount. Hardly less precious than the cameos in sardonyx were the imitations carved out of coloured glass. The material was not costly, but its extreme fragility made the work of extreme difficulty. Examples of such work are the Barberini or Portland vase, deposited in the British Museum, with scenes supposed to be connected with the story of Peleus and Thetis; and the " vase of blue glass " from Pompeii, in the museum at Naples (see Mau and Kelsey, p. 408). The world's great cameos, which are hardly more than a dozen in number, have not been found by excavation. They remained as precious objects in imperial and ecclesiastical treasuries and passed thence to the royal and national collections of modern Europe.

The Intaglio in the Roman Empire

The art of engraving in intaglio was also at a high level of excellence in the beginning of the Roman empire. This is to be inferred alike from the admirable portraits of the 1st century A.D., and from the number of signed gems bearing Roman artists' names, such as Aulus, Gnaius and the like, which could hardly belong to any other period. It is impossible, however, to found any argument upon the artists' signatures without taking into account the intricate questions of authenticity which are discussed in the following section.

Signed Gems

The number of gems which have, or purport to have, the name of the artist inscribed upon them is very large. A great many of the supposed signatures are modern forgeries, dating from the period between 1724 (when the book of Stosch, Gemmae antiquae caelatae, sealptorum nominibus insignitae, first drew general attention to the subject) and 1833, when the multitude of forged signatures (about 1800 in number) in the collection of Prince Poniatowski made the whole pursuit ridiculous. It is known, however, that forged signatures were current before 1724 (see Stosch, p. xxi.), and in the period immediately following they .were very numerous. Thus Laurence Natter (Methode de graver en pierres fines (1754), p. xxx.) confesses that, whenever desired, he made copies. For example, he copied a Venus (Brit. Mus. No. 2296), converting the figure into a Danae and affixing the name of Aulos which he found on the Venus. Cf. Mariette, Traite (1750), i. p. 101.

The question which of the multitude of supposed signatures can be accepted as genuine has been a subject of prolonged and intricate controversy. In the period immediately following the Poniatowski forgeries the extreme height of scepticism is represented by Koehler, who only acknowledged five gems (Koehler, iii. p. 206) as having genuine signatures. In recent years the subject has been principally dealt with by Furtwangler, whose conclusion is to admit a considerable number of gems rejected by his predecessors.

It must suffice here to point out a few general principles. In the first place a certain number of gems recently discovered have inscriptions which are undoubtedly genuine and which record the names of the engravers. The form of the signature may be a nominative with a verb, a nominative without a verb or a genitive. The artists in this class are Syries, Dexamenus, Epimenes and Semon, mentioned above, and a few others. Another group of gems which must be accepted consists of stones whose known history goes back to a period at which a forged inscription was impossible. Thus a bust of Athena in the Berlin Collection, signed by Eutyches, was seen by Cyriac of Ancona in 1 445. A glass cameo signed by Herophilus, son of Dioscorides, now at Vienna, was, in the f 7th century, in the monastery of Echternach, where it had probably been from old times. The portrait of Julia, daughter of Titus, by Euodos (now in the Bibliotheque Nationale) was formerly a part of a reliquary presented to the abbey of St Denis by Charles the Bold. Another group of undoubtedly genuine signatures occurs on cameos (in stone and paste) which have the inscriptions in relief, and therefore as part of the original design. Such are the works of Athenion, and of Quintus, son of Alexas.

For the great majority of signed gems which do not fall into these categories the reader must refer to the discussions of Furtwangler and others (see Bibliography below). It must suffice to say that Furtwangler arrives at the result that we have in all genuine signatures of at least fifty ancient gem-engravers.

Gem-Engraving in the Later Empire

In the following centuries the art of intaglio engraving, which was still at a high degree of perfection in the first century of the Roman empire, became more mechanical. The designs have a very characteristic appearance, due to the method of production with rough and hasty strokes of the wheel only. A collection of gems found in England, such as that in the possession of the corporation of Bath, shows the feeble character in particular of the gems current in the provinces. Except in portraiture, and in grylli or conceits, in which various things are combined into one, often with much skill, the subjects were as a rule only variations or adaptations of old types handed down from the Greeks. When new and distinctly Roman subjects occur, such as the finding of the head on the Capitol, or Faustu]us, or the she-wolf with the twins, both the stones and the workmanship are poor. In such cases, where the design stirs a genuine national interest, it may happen that very little of artistic rendering will be acceptable rather than otherwise, and much more is this true when the design is a symbol of some article of faith, as in the early Christian gems. There both the art and the material are at what may be called the lowest level. The usual subjects on the early Christian gems are the fish, anchor, ship, dove, the good shepherd, and, according to Clemens, the lyre. Under the Gnostics, however, with whom there was more of speculation than of faith, symbolism was developed to an extent which no art could realize without the aid of writing. A gem was to them a talisman more or less elaborate with long, but for the most part quite unintelligible, engraved formulae. The difficulty is to make out how the stones were carried; many specimens exist, but none show signs of mounting. The materials are usually haematite or jasper. As regards the designs, it is clear that Egyptian sources have been most drawn upon. But the symbolism is also largely associated with Mithraic worship. The name Abraxas, or more correctly Abrasax, which, from its frequency on these gems, has led to their being called also ” Abraxas gems," is, when the Greek letters of which it is composed are treated as Greek numerals, equal to 365, the number of days in a year, and the same is the case with MEIOPA2.

More interesting, from the occasionally forcible portraiture and the splendour of some of the jacinths employed, are the Sassanian gems, which as a class may be said to represent the last stage of true gem-engraving in ancient times.

The art of cameo-engraving, which, as we have seen, attained its greatest splendour at the beginning of the empire, followed on the whole a similar course. It waned in the early part of the 3rd century after the death of the emperor Severus, but under the first Christian emperor Constantine it enjoyed a brief period of revival. Fine cameo portraits of Constantine are extant; and it was during or shortly after his reign that Christian Scripture subjects began to appear on cameos. That class of subjects constituted the staple of such work - generally rude and artistically debased - as continued to be cultivated under the Byzantine empire down to nearly the epoch of the Renaissance.. From the Byzantine period downward one peculiarty of gemengraving becomes noticeable. Cameo-work as compared with intaglios in classical times was rare and infrequent, but now and. onwards the opposite is the case, intaglio-sinking having almost died out, and cameos being chiefly produced. Commercial. intercourse with the East still secured for the engravers a supply of magnificent sardonyxes, although blood-stone and other non-banded stones were very commonly used for works in relief. Cameos during the long dark ages were used chiefly for the decoration of reliquaries and other altar furniture, and as such their designs were purely ecclesiastical or scriptural. To this period also belongs the class of complimentary or motto cameos, which, containing only inscriptions and an ornamental border, executed. in nicolo stones, were used as personal gifts and adornments.

In medieval times antique cameos were held in peculiar veneration on account of the belief, then universal, in their potency as medicinal charms. This power was supposed to be derived. from their origin, of which two theories, equally satisfactory, were current. By the one they were held to be the work of the children of Israel during their sojourn in the wilderness (hence the name Pierres d'Israel), while the other theory held them to be direct products of nature, the engraved figures pointing to, the peculiar virtue lodged in them. Interpreters less mystically inclined found Biblical interpretations for the subjects. Thus the cameo of the Sainte Chapelle was supposed to represent the. triumph of Joseph in Egypt. A cameo with Poseidon, Athena. and her serpent was Adam and Eve.

The revival of the glyptic arts in western Europe dates from the pontificate of the Venetian Paul II. (1464-1471), himself an ardent lover and collector of gems, to which passion, indeed, it is gravely affirmed he was a martyr, having died of a cold caught by the multiplicity of gems exposed on his fingers. The cameos of the early part of the 16th century rival in beauty of execution the finest classical works, and, indeed, many of them pass in the cabinets of collectors for genuine antiques, which they closely imitated. The Oriental sardonyx was not available for the purposes of the Renaissance artists, who were consequently obliged to content themselves with the colder German agate onyx. The scarcity of worthy materials led them to use. the backs of ancient cameos, or to improve on classical works of inferior value executed on good material, and probably to this. cause must also be assigned the development of shell cameos, which are rarely found, of an older period.

Among the means of distinguishing antique cameos from cinquecento work, the kind of stone is one of the best tests, the classical artists having used only rich and warm-tinted Oriental stones, which further are frequently drilled through their diameter with a minute hole, from having been used by their original Oriental possessors in the form of beads. The cinquecento artists also, as a rule, worked their subjects in high relief, and resorted to undercutting, no case of which is found in the flat low work of classical times.. The projecting portions of antique work exhibit a dull chalky appearance, which, however, fabricators learned to imitate in various ways, one of which was by cramming the gizzards of turkey fowls with the gems. Another index of antiquity is found in the different methods of working adopted in classical and Renaissance times. The tools employed by the Renaissance engraver were the drill and the wheel, while the ancient artist also employed the diamond point.

The gem-engraver's art again during the 18th century revived under an even greater amount of encouragement from men of wealth and rank. In this last period the names of engravers who succeeded best in imitating classical designs were Natter, Pichler (fig. 14), and the Englishmen Marchant (fig. 15) and Burch. Compared with Greek gems, it will be seen that what 17) „.? ?`?? ???µ ?  ? (? '4 - - 1), 7: 7 -' t,: ,i ? j ,:??

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.? % FIG. 13. - Sassanian Gem. (Brit. Mus.) Gem. (Brit. Mus.) FIG. 12. - Gnostic FIG. II. - Christian Gem. The Good Shepherd. (Brit.Mus.) Fig. 14. - Muse, by Pichler. (Brit. Mus.) at first sight is attractive as refined and delicate is after all an exaggerated minuteness of execution, entirely devoid of the ancient spirit. The success with which modern engravers imposed on collectors is recorded in many instances, of which one may be taken as an instructive type. In the Bibliotheque Nationale is a gem (Chabouillet's catalogue, No. 2337), familiarly known as the signet of Michelangelo, the subject being a Bacchanalian scene. So much did he admire it, the story says, that he copied from it one of the groups in his paintings in the Sistine chapel. The gem, however, is evidently in this part of it a mere copy from Michelangelo's group, and therefore a subsequent production, probably by da Pescia.

In our own day the engraving of cameos has practically ceased to be pursued as an art. Roman manufacturers cut stones in large quantities to be used as shirt-studs and for setting in fingerrings; and in Rome and Paris an extensive trade is carried on in the cutting of shell cameos, which are largely imported into England and mounted as brooches by Birmingham jewelry manufacturers. The principal shell used is the large bull'smouth shell (Cassis rufa), found in East Indian seas, which has a sard-like underlayer. The black helmet (Cassis tuberosa) of the West Indian seas, the horned helmet (C. cornuta) of Madagascar, and the pinky queen's conch (Strombus gigas) of the West Indies are also employed. The famous potter Josiah Wedgwood introduced a method of making imitations of cameos in pottery by producing white figures on a coloured ground, this constituting the peculiarity of what is now known as Wedgwood ware.

Gem Collectors

The habit of gem-collecting is recorded first in the instance of Ismenias, a musician of Cyprus, who appears to have lived in the 4th century B.C. But though individual collectors are not again mentioned till the time of Mithradates, whose cabinet was carried off to Rome by Pompey, still it is to be inferred that they existed, if not pretty generally, yet in such places as Cyrene, where the passion for gems was so great that the thriftiest person owned one worth io minas, and where, according to Aelian (Var. hist. xii. 30), the skill in engraving was astonishing. The first cabinet (dactyliotheca) in Rome was that of Scaurus, a stepson of Sulla. Caesar is said to have formed six cabinets for public exhibition, and from the time of Augustus all men of refinement were supposed to be judges both of the art and of the quality of the stones.

In the middle ages the chief collections were incorporated in works of art in the church treasuries. The first collector of modern times was, as already mentioned, Pope Paul II., who was followed by a long succession of princely and noble collectors such as Lorenzo de' Medici and the great earl of Arundel. The collection of the latter passed into the hands of the dukes of Marlborough and thence into the possession of Mr David Bromilow. The collection was finally dispersed by auction in June 1899.

In modern times the principal collections are contained in state museums. The cabinets of Vienna and of the Bibliotheque Nationale are incomparably rich in the historic cameos. Those of the British Museum and of Berlin are the strongest in their range over the whole field of the gem-engraver's art.

Bibliography.-FOr the fullest general account of the subject (with especial attention to the gems of classical antiquity) see A. Furtwangler, Die antiken Gemmen, Geschichte der Steinschneiderkunst im klassischen Altertum, in 3 vols (1900). See also E. Babelon, La Gravure en pierres fines, camees et intailles (1894); A. H. Smith, " Gemma " and " Sculptura," in the 3rd edition of Smith's Dict. of Antiquities; J. H. Middleton, The Engraved Gems of Classical Times (1891). Much curious information is in the works of C. W. King: Handbook of Engraved Gems (1866); Antique Gems (1866); The Natural History, Ancient and Modern, of Precious Stones and Gems, and of the Precious Metals (1865); Antique Gems and Rings (2 vols., 1872).

Special Periods : - Babylonia, &c. - Menant, " Les Pierres gravees de la haute Asie," Recherches sur la glyptique orientate (1883-1886). Egypt. - For the early cylinder sealings, &c., see Petrie, " Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty " (Egypt Explor. Fund, X VIIIth Memoir), p. 24; pls. 12, figs. 3 to 7, and pls. 18-29; Amelineau, " Nouvelles Fouilles d'Abydos, 1897-1898," Compte rendu, pp. 78, 423; pl. 25, figs. 1 -3.

The Bible. - Petrie, " Stones (Precious)," in Hastings' Diet. of the Bible. Phoenician. - See M. A. Levy, Siegel and Gemmen, with three plates of gems having Phoenician, Aramaic, old Hebrew and other inscriptions (Breslau, 1869); and, on the same subject, De Vogue, in the Revue archeologique, 2nd series (1868), xvii. p. 432, pls. 14-16.

Crete

Articles by A. J. Evans in Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiv., xvii., xxi., and in Annual of British School at Athens, vi. and onwards. Classical Gems. - See Furtwangler, op. cit. Gnostic Gems. - Cabrol, Dict. d'archeologie chre'tienne, S.V. " Abrasax." For the controversy as to gems with artists' signatures, see Koehler, Abhandlung fiber die geschnittenen Steine, mit den Namen der Kiinstler; Koehler's collected works, ed. Stephani, vol. iii. (1851); Stephani, Notes to Koehler as above; also Ober einige angebliche Steinschneider des Alterthums (St Petersburg, 1851); Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen Kiinstler, ii. (1859), pp. 442-637; Furtwangler, Jahrbuch d. k. deutsch. arch. Inst. iii. (1888), pp. 105, 1 93, 2 97; iv. (1889), p. 46, and Geschichte, passim.

For the history of the Poniatowski gems, see Reinach, Pierres gravees, p. 151.

Catalogues

The chief catalogues dealing with modern public collections are: Berlin, A. Furtwangler, Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im Antiquarium (1896) British Museum, A. H. Smith, A Catalogue of Engraved Gems in the British Museum (Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities) (1888); Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Chabouillet, Catalogue. .. des camees et pierres gravees de la Bibliotheque Imperiale (1858); E. Babelon, Catalogue des camees ... de la Bibliotheque Nationale (1897).

Modern Engraving --Vasari vii. p. 113 (ed. Siena, 1792); continued by Mariette, Traite des pierres gravees (1750), i. p. 105. The older books on gems are very numerous, but those of present-day importance are not many. Faber, Illustrium imagines. .. .apud Fulvium Ursinum (Antwerp, 1606); Stosch, Gemmae antiquae caelatae, scalptorum nominibus insignitae (Amsterdam, 1724); Winckelmann, Description des pierres gravees du feu Baron de Stosch (1760); Krause, Pyrgoteles, oder die edlen Steine der Alien (1856); a convenient reissue of Stosch, and seven others of the older works, by S. Reinach, Pierres gravees, &c.. .. reunies et reeditees, aver un texte nouveau (1895).

Pastes

The principal collection of glass and sulphur pastes from gems was that issued by James Tassie of Glasgow, with A Descriptive Catalogue of a General Collection of. .. Engraved Gems. arranged and described by R. E. Raspe (the author of Baron Mun- chausen) (1791). (A. S. M.; A. H. SM.)