Storage Vessel with Painted Decoration
Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art
On View: Egyptian Orientation Gallery, 3rd Floor
Pottery Manufacture
Available materials, construction technique, and even social status all played a role in the manufacture of pottery.
Most ancient Egyptian towns had at least one skilled potter who served the entire community. Palaces, estates, and temples employed dozens of craftsmen to fashion luxury and ritual wares.
Potters used two principal materials: alluvial silt (soil deposited by the floodwaters of the Nile) and soft desert shale called marl. Silt contains iron oxides and fires red; marl, rich in calcium carbonate, fires to a buff color. To make both clays more workable, potters added straw, crushed stone, or pulverized pottery.
Potters constructed vessels by hand or on a wheel. Hand building involved shaping the clay manually and with simple tools. To create vessels on a wheel, artisans rotated the clay rapidly on a low, flat turntable and let centrifugal force pull it into shape. Spiral marks, evident on several examples in this case, indicate wheel manufacture.
MEDIUM
Clay, pigment
DATES
ca. 1479–1425 B.C.E.
DYNASTY
Dynasty 18
PERIOD
New Kingdom
DIMENSIONS
14 9/16 x Diam. 7 1/16 in. (37 x 17.9 cm)
(show scale)
ACCESSION NUMBER
07.447.448
CREDIT LINE
Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
PROVENANCE
Esna, Egypt (Ramessid); 1907, excavated by Henri de Morgan of Francescas, France and New York, NY for the Brooklyn Museum.
Provenance FAQ
CAPTION
Storage Vessel with Painted Decoration, ca. 1479–1425 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 14 9/16 x Diam. 7 1/16 in. (37 x 17.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.448. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.07.447.448_NegL1010_5_print_bw.jpg)
IMAGE
overall,
CUR.07.447.448_NegL1010_5_print_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
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RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.
How did these vessels with pointed bottoms stay upright in ancient Egypt?
We get that question often. Vessels like this one may have stood in specially designed racks with openings to hold those pointed bottoms. They also may have been placed in holes dug into earth floors, or simply have been leaned against walls.
You'll notice the color blue on many objects in this gallery. For the ancient Egyptians, blue symbolized water, necessary for all forms of life, and especially crucial in a desert climate!