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Numerous fragments of this lustred pottery had been disinterred from the site at Rhagae, and it was therefore assumed that the beautiful process was of Persian origin, particularly as most of the examples then known bore designs of distinctly Persian style.

In any case the secret was soon carried to Persia, for we have ample evidence that it was practised at Rhagae in the next century.

In the same way Rhagae or Rai, one of the ancient capitals of Persia, the site of which lies a few miles east of Teheran, was destroyed about 1220 by Jenghiz Khan.

Rhagae was once an important centre of the ceramic industry, but this was transferred to the neighbouring town of Veramin, in the 13th century.

The Egyptian glaze certainly spread into western Asia, and we find the last specimens of it in the tiles from the destroyed city of Rhagae in Persia, which may be as late as the 13th century a.d.