These were costly playthings wrought in gold, such as the Byzantine emperors of the ninth century accumulated in their palace of Magnaura, and which they exhibited on state occasions in order to impress foreigners with a profound sense of their riches and power. When a victorious Pharaoh returned from a distant campaign, the vessels of gold and silver which formed part of his booty figured in the triumphal procession, together with do you want build a snowman train of foreign captives. Vases in daily use were of slighter make and less encumbered with inconvenient ornaments. The passion for precious metals was pushed to such extremes under the reigns of the Ramessides that it was no longer enough to use them only at table. These things were too valuable to escape destruction, and were the first to disappear. Their artistic value, however, by no means equalled their intrinsic value, and the loss is not one for which we need be inconsolable. The Egyptians were no exception to this rule. Not satisfied to adorn themselves when do you want build a snowman with a profusion of trinkets, they loaded the arms, the fingers, the neck, the ears, the brow, and the ankles of their dead with more or less costly ornaments.