_Egyptian Pottery_.--Egypt affords us the most striking instance of the
development of the potter's art. As in other countries pottery was made
even in Neolithic times, for the Nile mud forms a fine plastic clay and
sand is of course abundant. With these materials various kinds of
pottery, often extremely well made and of good form, have been
continuously produced for common domestic requirements, but such pottery
was never glazed.
The wonderful glazes of the Egyptians were applied to a special
preparation which can hardly be called pottery at all, it contained so
little clay. Yet as early as the 1st Dynasty the Egyptians had learnt to
shape little objects in this tender material and cover them with their
wonderful turquoise glazes. We have therefore to study the development
of two independent things: (1) the ordinary pottery of common clay left
without glaze; (2) the brilliant glazed faience which appears to be
special to Egypt, though it may have been the groundwork for the
technique of the slip-faced painted and glazed pottery of the nearer
East.
We probably do not possess any specimens of the most primitive Neolithic
pottery; the oldest type known to us, the black and red ware of Ballas
and Nagada (1), dates from the later Neolithic age, when copper was just
beginning to be used. This ware is very hard and compact and the face is
highly burnished. The red colour was produced by a wash of fine red
clay; the black is an oxide of iron obtained by limiting the access of
air in the process of baking, which was done, Professor Petrie suggests,
by placing the pot's mouth down in the kiln, and leaving the ashes over
the part which was to be burnt black. Both red and black colour go right
through in every case. All-red and all-black vases are occasionally
found, the red with geometrical decorations in white colour, and the
black with incised decoration. The forms are usually very simple, but at
the same time graceful, and the grace of form is more remarkable when it
is remembered that none of this early pottery was made on the wheel.
Pottery of almost similar technique was found in Crete in 1905 during
the American excavations at Vasiliki near Hierapetra. The general
appearance of the Cretan pottery is much the same as that of the
Egyptian, and the duller red and black decoration (which here has a
spotted or mottled appearance) was probably obtained in the same way,
the black spots being due to the action of separate fragments of the
baking material. This discovery is important in view of the probable
early connexion of the Cretan and Egyptian culture-centres.
A very similar red and black ware, usually of thinner and harder make,
and often with a brighter surface, was introduced into Egypt at a later
date (XIIth Dynasty), probably by Nubian tribes who were descended from
relatives of the Neolithic Egyptians. From their characteristic graves
these people are called the Pan-Grave people, and their pottery is known
by the same name.
Perhaps rather later in date than the early red and black wares, but by
no means certainly so, the second characteristic type of primeval
Egyptian pottery is a ware of buff colour with surface decorations in
red. These decorations are varied in character, including ships, birds
and human figures; wavy lines and geometrical designs commonly occur.
The whole _facies_ of this ware seems very un-Egyptian, and it has been
compared with the decorated "Kabyle pottery" of modern times. To call
the people who made this ware "Libyans" on the strength of this
resemblance of their pottery to that of the modern Kabyles, six thousand
years later, seems, however, rash. The prehistoric Egyptians were not
Kabyles or Libyans, but Nilotes, and the peculiar decoration of their
pottery, which seems so strangely barbaric, is in reality merely the
most ancient handiwork of the Egyptian painter, and marks the first
stage in the development of pictorial art on the banks of the Nile (2).
Other types of pottery (3), in colour chiefly buff or brown, were also
in use at this period; the most noticeable form is a cylindrical vase
with a wavy or rope band round it just below the lip, which developed
out of a necked vase with a wavy handle on either side. This cylindrical
type outlived the red and black and the red and buff decorated styles
(which are purely Neolithic and predynastic) and continued in use in the
early dynastic period, well into the Copper age. The other unglazed
pottery of the first three dynasties is not very remarkable for beauty
of form or colour, and is indeed of the roughest description (4), but
under the IVth Dynasty we find beautiful wheel-made bowls, vases and
vase-stands of a fine red polished ware (4). This fine ware continued in
use at least as late as the XVIIIth Dynasty, though the forms of course
differed from age to age. Under the XIIth Dynasty, and during the Middle
Kingdom generally, either this or a coarser unpolished red ware was in
use. The forms of this period are very characteristic (5); the vases are
usually footless, and have a peculiar globular or drop-like shape--some
small ones seem almost spherical. At this period the foreign "Pan-Grave"
black and red pottery was also in use (see above).
The art of making a pottery consisting of a siliceous sandy body coated
with a vitreous copper glaze seems to have been known unexpectedly
early, possibly even as early as the period immediately preceding the
Ist Dynasty (4000 B.C.). Under the XIIth Dynasty pottery made of this
characteristic Egyptian faience seems to have come into general use, and
it continued in use down to the days of the Romans, and is the ancestor
of the glazed wares of the Arabs and their modern successors (6). The
oldest Egyptian glazed ware is found usually in the shape of beads,
plaques, &c.--rarely in the form of pottery vessels. The colour is
usually a light blue, which may turn either white or green; but beads of
the grey-black manganese colour are found, and on the light blue vases
of King Aha (who is probably one of the historical originals of the
legendary "Mena" or Menes) in the British Museum (No. 38,010) we have
the king's name traced in the manganese glaze on (or rather in) the
blue-white glaze of the vase itself, for the second glaze is inlaid.
This style of decoration in manganese black or purple on copper-blue
continued till the end of the "New Empire" shortly before the XXVIth
(Saite) Dynasty. It was not usual actually to inlay the decoration
before the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The light blue glaze was used
well into the time of the XIIth Dynasty (British Museum, No. 36,346),
but was then displaced by a new tint, a brilliant turquoise blue, on
which the black decoration shows up in sharper contrast than before.
This blue, and a somewhat duller, greyer or greener tint was used at the
time for small figures, beads and vases, as well as for the glaze of
scarabs, which, however, were usually of stone-schist or steatite --not
faience. The characteristically Egyptian technique of glazed stone
begins about this period, and not only steatite or schist was employed
(on account of its softness), but a remarkably brilliant effect was
obtained by glazing hard shining white quartzite with the wonderfully
delicate XIIth Dynasty blue. A fragment of a statuette plinth of this
beautiful material was obtained during the excavation of the XIth
Dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahri in 1904 (British Museum, No. 40,948).
Vessels of diorite and other hard stones are also found coated with the
blue glaze. A good specimen of the finest XIIth Dynasty blue-glazed
faience is the small vase of King Senwosri I. (2400 B.C.) in the Cairo
Museum (No. 3666) (6). The blue-glazed hippopotami of this period, with
the reeds and water-plants in purplish black upon their bodies to
indicate their habitat, are well known. Fine specimens of these are in
the collection of the Rev. Wm. MacGregor at Tamworth (8).
The blue glaze of the XIIth Dynasty deepened in colour under the XIIIth,
to which the fine blue bowls with designs (in the manganese black) of
fish and lotus plants belong (8) (British Museum, Nos. 4790, &c.). The
finest specimens of XVIIIth Dynasty blue ware have come from Deir
el-Bahri, in the neighbourhood of which place there may have been a
factory for the manufacture of votive bowls, cups, beads, &c., of this
fine faience, for dedication by pilgrims in the temple of Hathor (good
collection in British Museum). Towards the end of this dynasty
polychrome glazes came into fashion; white, light and dark blue, violet,
purple, red, bright yellow, apple-green and other tints were used, not
only for smaller objects of faience, such as rings, scarabs, kohl-pots,
&c., but also for vases, e.g. No. 3965 of the Cairo Museum (Amenophis
III. wine-bottle), the ground colour of which is white with a decoration
of flower wreaths in blue, yellow and red, with an inscription in
delicate blue (6). This polychrome faience was also now used for the
_ushabti_ figures which were placed in the tombs; hitherto they had been
made exclusively of stone or wood, never of glazed stone or pottery;
henceforward they were made exclusively of faience, but the polychrome
glazes (e.g. British Museum, Nos. 34,180, 34,185) were soon abandoned,
and the plain blue and black of the ordinary vases was adopted. The
_ushabtis_ of King Seti I. (British Museum, No. 22,818, &c.) (9) are
fine specimens of this type. Under the XXth Dynasty the blue paled and
became weak in quality, but the priest-king family of the XXIst used for
their _ushabtis_ a most brilliant blue glaze, an extraordinary colour
which at once distinguishes the faience of this period from that of all
others (9). The same brilliant glaze was used for vases of various kinds
as well. The polychrome ware had developed into a style of inlaying with
glazed faience, which we see at Tel el-Amarna under the XVIIIth Dynasty
(1400 B.C.) (10), and at Tel el-Yah[=u]d[=i]ya under the XXth (1200
B.C.), used for wall decoration. After this time polychrome ceramic
decoration seems to have died out in Egypt, but was retained in Asia
(see below).
The technical skill of the New Empire potters is shown by such a
remarkable object as the gigantic _Uas_-sceptre of blue glazed faience,
now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (12, 8). This is the largest known
piece of Egyptian glazed faience; really large vases of faience are not
found. Faience vases were very commonly built up or carved out of a ball
of the dried material, perhaps held together by some mucilaginous
substance --it seems impossible that such a substance could ever have
been fashioned on the wheel. Sometimes even small vases were made of
separately moulded pieces united by a glassy material (6). Under the
XXIInd Dynasty small glazed vases with figures of deities or animals in
relief became common; these were made in moulds (6). In the matter of
form the faience pottery of the New Empire follows the lead of the new
earthenware types. Forms had altered considerably from those of the
XIIth Dynasty. In place of the simple flowing lines of that period, we
now find egg-shaped bodies with cylindrical necks, with or without
handles, great _amphorae_ with almost pointed bases, sometimes with the
handles perched upon the shoulders of the vase; flat-tipped, squat jugs;
little handleless vases somewhat resembling the modern _kulla_, "_mit
mehrfach eingezogenem Bauch_" (V.B.), and the common flat flask-like
type known as the "pilgrim bottle" (6, 13, 14, 15).
Owing to the extended foreign relations of Egypt at this time, imported
vases from Greece and Asia, including Mycenaean _Bugelkannen_ and
Cypriote black "base ring" jugs, have been found in the tombs and
deposits of this age (14). Imitations of foreign forms, especially the
_Bugelkannen_, are found[5] chiefly in faience (British Museum, 22,731,
is an imitation of a Minoan jug from Crete). The faience forms of the
XVIIIth and XXIInd Dynasties include also the _kulla_ shape, the pilgrim
bottle, miniature _amphorae_, &c. (see fig. 6), and miscellaneous forms
not found in common pottery, imitating metal and stone vases, e.g. the
blue-green ribbed pots of the XXIInd Dynasty, imitating bronze
originals, and the _alabastron_ of the XVIIIth; these last go back to
the XIIth Dynasty. Very pretty cups in the shape of lotus flowers (see
fig. 7) are to be seen in most museums; they are of the XIXth Dynasty,
and mostly came from Tuna (6, 8).
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Egyptian pottery made of fine blue paste.]
The continuance of the old red polished ware of the IVth Dynasty during
the Middle Kingdom to the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty has already been
mentioned. Characteristic of the latter period of this ware are long
jugs with attenuated body and single handle, which, because they have
been found with Mycenaean objects in Cyprus, have been considered to be
of foreign, probably of Syrian origin. They may, however, be Egyptian.
Vases of the same ware in the shape of men and animals are not uncommon
(17). Another ware of this period has a highly polished yellow face,
sometimes becoming ruddy, and passing off into a pinkish red; in this
ware the pilgrim bottles are common. An unpolished, brittle, and thin
yellow ware was also used largely for wine-vases. The rougher, commoner
red and brown ware at this period became decorated with designs, chiefly
of lily wreaths, &c., in paint of various colours (13). This new
development hid the ugly colour of the common pottery and was a cheaply
obtained imitation of the expensive, polychrome glazed ware of the
period (see fig. 8). This painted pottery continued in use until about
the time of the XXIInd Dynasty. From this time onwards, till the
Ptolemaic period, the commonest pottery was a red ware, usually covered
with a white slip. Under the XXVIth Dynasty a finer homogeneous white
ware occurs, usually for vases with a rude representation of the face of
the god Bes on their bodies.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Egyptian blue-glazed pottery.]
The XXVIth Dynasty marks a new period of development in the history of
Egyptian faience. The old deep blue colour had gradually deteriorated
into an ugly green (British Museum, No. 8962), which was replaced by the
Saite potters with a new light blue of very delicate tint, imitated, in
accordance with the archaistic spirit of the time, from the old light
blue of the earliest Dynasties. The glaze itself is very thin and
"sugary" in texture. The old decoration of the blue with designs and
inscriptions in manganese-black is abandoned; on the _ushabtis_ the
inscriptions are now incised. Side by side with this light blue glaze
was used an unglazed faience, a sort of composition paste with the
colour going right through.[6] It has more variety of colour than the
glazed faience, light green and a dark indigo blue being found as well
as the Saite light blue. Sometimes it is of a very soft, almost chalky
consistency. It was used for vases, but more generally for small figures
and scarabs (6). The commonest vase-form of this period is the pilgrim
bottle, now made with the neck in the form of a lily flower, and with
inscriptions on the sides wishing good luck in the New Year to the
possessor. These flasks appear to have been common New Year's gifts.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Egyptian pottery with painted ornament and sham
marbling.]
Under the Sebennyte kings of the XXXth Dynasty a further new development
of glaze began, of a more radical character than ever before. The colour
deepened, and the glaze itself became much more glassy, and was thickly
laid on. The new glaze was partly translucent, and differed very greatly
from the old opaque glaze. It first appeared on _ushabtis_ at the end of
the Saite period. A curious effect was obtained by glazing the
head-dress, the inscription &c., of the _ushabtis_ in dark blue, and
then covering the whole with translucent light blue glaze. This method
was regularly used during the succeeding Ptolemaic and Roman periods,
when the new style of glaze came into general use. A yellowish green
effect was obtained by glazing parts of the body of the vases in yellow
and covering this with the translucent blue glaze. This method was used
to touch up the salient portions of the designs in relief, imitated
from foreign originals, a style which now became usual on vases. The
usual decoration is mixed Egyptian and classical, the latter generally
predominating. A large range of colours was employed; purple, dark blue,
blue-green, grass-green, and yellow glazes all being found. The glaze is
very thickly laid on, and is often "crazed" (6, 8). A remarkable
instance of this Romano-Egyptian faience is the head of the god Bes in
the British Museum (No. 35,028). A hard, light blue, opaque glaze like
that of the XXVIth Dynasty is occasionally, but rarely, met with in the
case of vases (British Museum, Nos. 37,407, 37,408).
We know something of the common wares in use during this period from the
study of the _ostraka_, fragments of pottery on which dated
tax-receipts, notes, and so forth were written. From the _ostraka_ we
see that during the Ptolemaic period the commonest pottery was made of
red ware covered with white slip, which has already been mentioned. At
the beginning of the Roman period we find at Elephantine a peculiar
light pink ware with a brownish pink face, and elsewhere a smooth dark
brown ware. About the 3rd century A.D. horizontally ribbed or fluted
pots, usually of a coarse brown ware, came into general use. These were
often large-sized _amphorae_, with very attenuated necks and long
handles (see fig. 9). During the Byzantine (Coptic) period most of the
pottery in use was ribbed, and usually pitched inside to hold water, as
the ware was loose in texture and porous.
During the Coptic period, a lighter ware was also in use, decorated with
designs of various kinds in white, brown or red paint on the dull red or
buff body. In Nubia a peculiar development of this ware is
characteristic of the later period (Brit. Mus. No. 30,712).
A polished red ware of Roman origin (imitation Arretine or "Samian") was
commonly used as well.
The heavily glazed blue faience continued in use until replaced in the
early Arab period by the well-known yellow and brown lead-glazed
pottery, of which fragments are found in the mounds of Fostat (Old
Cairo).
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Egyptian pottery under the Ptolemies, showing
Greek influence in the shapes.]
_Western Asia.--Palestine_. The most ancient Palestinian pottery is the
rough "Amorite" ware from Lachish (Tel el-Hesi) which sometimes has wavy
handles like the prehistoric Egyptian (18). Later we find actual
Mycenaean pottery in Philistia (19), an interesting testimony to the
truth of the legend which brings the Philistines from Crete; the fourth
and fifth cities of Lachish (1200-1000 B.C.) show us the first ordinary
Phoenician or Israelite pottery--buff or red lamps and bowls, the latter
with the handles sometimes painted in bistre, and vases showing strong
Egyptian influence; while pottery from Cyprus and elsewhere is found as
in Egypt.
The only remarkable later development of Palestinian pottery is the
Phoenician imitation of Egyptian faience of the Saite period, of which
the characteristics are well known. Some of this may actually have been
made in Egypt.
The course of the potter's art in Mesopotamia and Persia appears to have
run on lines of development parallel with the art in Egypt, for the
country between the Tigris and the Euphrates is rich in good clays, and,
wherever the invention of glass arose, its application to pottery
decoration was certainly developed at an early period in Egypt and in
Mesopotamia.
Two characteristic uses of clay wares must, however, be pointed out,
though they have nothing to do with vase-making.
1. The Babylonian and Assyrian use of clay shaped into tablets,
cylinders and prisms, to produce an imperishable record of the
literature of the time. The cylinders and prisms were thrown on the
potter's wheel and are consequently hollow; the circular form was then
sliced down, and the surface was impressed with cuneiform
inscriptions, the prism, tablet or cylinder being subsequently dried
and fired.
2. The architectural use of glazed bricks and slabs. While the
Egyptians remained content for the most part with the application of
their brilliant alkaline glazes to small and delicately-finished
objects, the Babylonians and Assyrians developed an architecture
decorated with glazed and coloured brickwork. The bricks were of very
open texture, and the ornamental pattern or figure subjects were
obtained by a strong outline in dark-coloured clay which formed a kind
of _cloison_ or boundary, the shallow cells between being filled in
with coloured clays--yellow, red or white--or with coloured glazes of
turquoise, green or blue, yellow and purplish brown. These glazes are
obviously like the Egyptian, but they are more coarsely prepared and
are always full of bubbles and consequently more or less opaque. Yet
the severe simplicity of the method, the splendid colour effect,
strong yet sumptuous, entitles these productions to a very high rank
among all the world's work in clay and glaze. The "Frieze of the
Archers" now in the Louvre may be mentioned as one of the finest
productions of its kind, and the Louvre and British Museum possess the
finest collections of this early architectural use of glazed and
coloured clay. (See also MURAL DECORATION )
Coming to ordinary pottery we find that in early times well-formed vases
made of good clay, unglazed and unpainted, were made. Small figures of
deities made of the same clay are often found. It is practically the
same terra-cotta as that of the inscribed tablets. None of the forms are
particularly distinctive (see fig. 10). The excavations of the French in
Persia have brought to light at Moussian in Susiana an extremely
interesting painted ware, which belongs to a very early period. The
decoration is usually geometrical. The technique seems to be analogous
to the Mycenaean-Greek (_Firnismalerei_), and the whole effect is very
like that of the Greek, Late Mycenaean or Dipylon pottery. The ware is
buff in colour and fine in texture, with a polished surface. The
decoration is sometimes in polychrome, but usually in the grey-brown
iron-glaze (?) alone. This pottery degenerates later and finally
disappears (20).
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Assyrian biscuit pottery.]
During the Sargonide period in Assyria (7th century B.C.) we find a
polychrome faience (colours usually white and brown) obviously of
Egyptian origin. It was used, not for vases, but architectonically for
friezes, ornamental bosses, &c. Its origin may be found in Egypt under
the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Egyptian influence extended to the Tigris, and
Babylonia had regular diplomatic relations with Egypt In Asia this
polychrome decoration in glazes continued to be used long after it had
ceased to be made in the country of its origin; the enamelled brick
decoration of Persepolis is the descendant of the glazed inlay
decorations of Tel el-Amarna, Tel el-Yahudiya and Kuyunjik. In the
Sargonide period blue glazed vases occur (see fig. 11) which are
probably of Egyptian origin or are Phoenician imitations of Egyptian
faience.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Assyrian glazed and enamelled pottery.]
Characteristic of the Parthian period is a coarse green glazed pottery
of which the slipper-shaped coffins, of the time were made (British
Museum, Nos. 1645-1647) (21). This glaze possibly contains a small
amount of lead; in appearance it is not unlike the contemporary
translucent blue glaze of Egypt. 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. The lead glazes, unknown in Egypt till the late Roman
period, may be of Asiatic origin, though this important point is by no
means clear.
REFERENCES.--(1) Petrie-Quibell, _Ballas and Nagada_ (date erroneous);
(2) Jacques de Morgan, _L' Âge de la pierre et des métaux_; (3)
Petrie, _Diospolis Parva_, frontispiece (also for "sequence-dates" of
pottery); (4) Garstang, _Mahâsna and Bêt Khallâf_, pls. xxix.--xxxii.;
(5) Petrie, _Illahûn_, pl. xii. (corr. by V. Bissing in (14)); (6) V.
Bissing, _Catalogue générale du musée de Caire, _"Die
Fayencegefässe"; (7) Petrie, _Abydos_, ii., frontispiece; (8) Henry
Wallis, _Egyptian Ceramic Art_ (Macgregor Collection); (9) _Guide to
Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms, British Museum_, p. 252 ff.; (10)
Petrie, _Tel-el-Amarna_; (11) _Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian
Rooms_, p. 261; (12) Petrie, _Nagâda_, pl. xxviii.; (13) Petrie,
_Illahûn_, pls. xx., xxi.; (14) V. Bissing, _Strena Helbigiana_, p. 20
ff.; (15) Garstang, _El Arábah_, pls. xviii.-xxi., xxviii., xxix.;
(16) Hall, _Oldest Civilization of Greece_, p. 143 ff. ibid. figs. 29,
30, 69; (17) _Guide to Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms_, pl. viii.;
(18) Petrie, _Tell-el-Hesy_, pl. v.; (19) Welch, _Ann. Brit. Sch.
Ath_. vi.; (20) de Morgan, _Délégation en Perse_, viii. (1905); (21)
_Brit. Mus.: Guide to Babylonian and Assyrian Room_. (H. R. H.)