Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Murrhina

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MUR'RHINA, MUR'RHEA, and MYR'RHINA. Porcelain vases. (Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 7. Prop. iv. 5. 26. Juv. vi. 156. Lamprid. Elag. 32.) Modern investigations have placed it beyond dispute that the murrha of the ancients was a fine earth, dug in the East, out of which vases of different kinds, but of light and fragile substance, were made; and many fragments of ancient porcelain have been discovered in various excavations, agreeing remarkably with the description of Pliny (H. N. xxxvii. 8.), in regard to the variety of colours with which they are covered; though in other respects his idea of the material which composes them may be said rather to verge upon the truth, than to afford a faithful account of the actual substance. But the well-attested fact that several bottles of real Chinese porcelain, inscribed with native characters, have been found in the tombs of Egypt (one of which is represented in the annexed woodcut (Murrhina/1.1), from the original of Salt's collection in the British Museum), distinctly proves that objects of that material were exported from China at a very early period, although the art of making it may not have been discovered by the Romans; and this would account for the prodigious value set upon them.

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  Murrhina/1.1