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edge of the Nile marsh. These reeds furnish piles of pale yellow paper in long narrow sheets (§ 58). The ships which we have followed on the Mediterranean (Fig. 41) will in course of time add bales of this Nile paper to their cargoes, and carry it to the European world.
 
    We seem almost to hear the hubbub of hammers and mauls as we approach the next section of wall, where we find the skipbuilders and cabinetmakers. Here is a long line of curving hulls, with workmen swarming over them like ants, fitting together the earliest seagoing ships (Fig. 41). Beside them are the busy cabinet makers (Fig. 50), fashioning luxurious furniture for the noble’s villa. The finished chairs and couches for the king or the rich are overlaid with gold and silver, hilaid with ebony and ivory, and upholstered with soft leathern cushions (Fig. 73).

    As we look back over these painted chapel walls we see that the tombs of Gizeh have told us a very vivid story of how these early men learned to make for themselves the things they needed. We should notice how many more such things these men of the Nile could now make than the Stone Age men, who 

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A B C
FIG. 49.  EGYPTIAN GLASS BOTTLES AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION FROM BABYLONIA TO ANCIENT ITALY

   A, as found in ancient Egypt
   B, as found in ancient Babylonia
   C, as found in ancient Italy

The shape is in imitation of Egyptian perfume bottles cut out of alabaster. This shape be- came the common form for perfume and toilet bottles among the Mediterranean peoples in later times (see Fig. 170)


 
 
 

86. Ship-
builders. carpenters, and cabinet-
makers
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

87. Industrial progress of Egypt revealed by the tomb-chapels

65


 
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