"Prolate" Quotes from Famous Books
... have been obtained. Owing to the facility with which alabaster can be reduced by fire to lime, very few large examples of it in Rome have escaped the ruthless kilns of the middle ages. The most interesting specimens of ancient alabaster are the very beautiful vase of Alabastro cotognino, prolate in form, and in colour white, streaked with very light pink, which contained the ashes of Augustus, found in the ruins of his mausoleum, and now in the Vatican; the bust of Julius Caesar, made of the variety tartaruga, from the resemblance of its brownish-yellow ... — Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan |