"Although none of the very ancient kilns have survived the destructive influence of time, yet among all the great nations baked earthenware is of the highest antiquity. In Egypt, in the tombs of the first dynasties, vases and other remains of baked earthenware are abundantly found; and in and , the oldest bricks and tablets have passed through the furnace. ...The desire of rendering terra-cotta less porous, and of producing vases capable of retaining liquids, gave rise to the covering of it with a or glaze. The invention of glass has been hitherto generally attributed to the ns: but opaque glasses or enamels, as old as the XVIIIth dynasty, and enamelled objects as early as the IVth, have been found in Egypt. The employment of copper to produce a brilliant blue coloured enamel was very early both in Babylonia and Assyria; but the use of tin for a white enamel, as recently discovered in the enamelled bricks and vases of Babylonia and Assyria, anticipated by many centuries the rediscovery of that process in Europe in the 15th century, and shows the early application of metallic oxides. This invention apparently remained for many centuries a secret among the Eastern nations only, enamelled terra-cotta and glass forming articles of commercial export from Egypt and Phoenicia to every part of the Mediterranean. Among the Egyptians and Assyrians enamelling was used more frequently than glazing..."