Museum Pieces - Faience glaze bowl

Photocredit: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden Leiden

FAIENCE GLAZE BOWL

Beautiful faience drinking bowl depicting a female musician in an erotic theme. The female courtesan, only wearing a headband, waistband and some jewelery, is playing a duckheaded lute. She bears a tattoo of Bes on her thigh, and the overall image is riddled with sex symbolism: from the plants surrounding her, to the figural duck on the lute, to the lotus and perfume cone on her head, to the Bes tattoo itself. The little playful monkey behind her is trying to take her waistband.

1400 - 1300 BC (18th - 19th Dynasty)

Inventorynr.: AD 14
Faience bowl
4,5 x 14 cm


More about faience

‘Egyptian Faience’ is a glazed non-clay ceramic material. Whilst, as the name indicates its wide spread in Egypt, it was also found and manufactured in the rest of the Near East and the Mediterranean. Egyptian faience should not be confused with the earthenware of the Faenze region of Italy, now more commonly known as ‘majolica’.

To the ancient Egyptians, faience was known as "tjehnet" which meant brilliant or dazzling and it was thought to shine with light as the symbol of life, rebirth and immortality. This man made material was probably intended to resemble precious stones like turquoise and lapis lazuli.

Faience objects were very common in ancient Egypt from the Predynastic times until the late Arab period in the fourteenth century AD. Faience was used to produce a wide range of artefacts from beads and small objects to vessels, tiles and architectural elements.

Production of faience in ancient Egypt

Faience technology evolved after complex experimentations during the early dynasties, from applying glaze on carved steatite figures to the exploration and manipulation of quartz paste. The early faience was shaped using stone working methods to make beads, amulets and small objects. Efflorescence as a self glazing method was adopted in addition to the older method of application.

During the Middle Kingdom period, the cementation method of glazing was developed and used; the forming techniques remained simple such as modelling and moulding on a form or core. The faience production flourished in the New Kingdom when a greater diversity of shapes and techniques were introduced that probably derived from the advance of glass technology. These techniques helped improve the faience body by mixing it with frit and powdered glass and this improvement, coupled with the introduction of new designs and ideas, led to enhanced material, colours and shapes. Many of the finest faience objects were produced in this period.

Faience manufacture appears to have declined in quality during the Third Intermediate Period, with a return to the traditional methods and the loss of much of the technical knowledge. The Late Period witnessed a revival in faience production, and a new range of excellent objects and glazing appeared. The Greco-Roman Period shows evidence of close relations between faience production and pottery manufacture which includes throwing faience vessels on the wheel and applying glaze as slurry. The faience link to pottery in the Roman period probably caused a shift towards glazed pottery production and gradually led to the decline of faience.


Sources:

http://www.rmo.nl/collectie/-topstukken-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/faience/history.htm

When Lettuce Was a Sacred Sex Symbol

Lettuce has been harvested for millenia—it was depicted by ancient Egyptians on the walls of tombs dating back to at least 2,700 B.C. The earliest version of the greens resembled two modern lettuces: romaine, from the French word “romaine” (from Rome), and cos lettuce, believed to have been found on the island of Kos, located along the coast of modern day Turkey.  

But in Ancient Egypt around 2,000 B.C., lettuce was not a popular appetizer, it was an aphrodisiac, a phallic symbol that represented the celebrated food of the Egyptian god of fertility, Min. (It is unclear whether the lettuce’s development in Egypt predates its appearance on the island of Kos.) The god, often pictured with an erect penis in wall paintings and reliefs was also known as the “great of love” as he is called in a text from Edfu Temple. The plant was believed to help the god “perform the sexual act untiringly.”

Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo who specializes in Ancient Egyptian food explains Min’s part in lettuce history. “Over 3,000 years, [Min's] role did change, but he was constantly associated with lettuce,” she says.

The first of these depictions appeared around 1970-80 B.C. in the The White Chapel of Senusret I, though there may be earlier examples, Ikram says.

Cemetery Reveals Baby-Making Season in Ancient Egypt

by Owen Jarus, LiveScience ContributorDate: 16 May 2013

The peak period for baby-making sex in ancient Egypt was in July and August, when the weather was at its hottest.

Researchers made this discovery at a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt whose burials date back around 1,800 years. The oasis is located about 450 miles (720 kilometers) southwest of Cairo. The people buried in the cemetery lived in the ancient town of Kellis, with a population of at least several thousand. These people lived at a time when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, when Christianity was spreading but also when traditional Egyptian religious beliefs were still strong.

So far, researchers have uncovered 765 graves, including the remains of 124 individuals that date to between 18 weeks and 45 weeks after conception. The excellent preservation let researchers date the age of the remains at death. The researchers could also pinpoint month of death, as the graves were oriented toward the rising sun, something that changes predictably throughout the year.

The results, combined with other information, suggested the peak period for births at the site was in March and April, and the peak period for conceptions was in July and August, when temperatures at the Dakhleh Oasis can easily reach more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).

Uncovered: Ritual public drunkenness and sex in ancient Egypt

By Melissa Healy April 29, 2013

I'll bet you that archaeologist Betsy Bryan's perspective on reality-show behavior is a little longer than most. Since 2001, Bryan has led the excavation of the temple complex of the Egyptian goddess Mut in modern-day Luxor, the site of the city of Thebes in ancient Egypt. And the ritual she has uncovered, which centers on binge drinking, thumping music and orgiastic public sex, probably makes "Jersey Shore" look pretty tame.

At least it was thought to serve a greater societal purpose.

Bryan, a specialist in the art, ritual and social hierarchy of Egypt's New Kingdom (roughly 1600 to 1000 BC),  has painstakingly pieced together the details of the Festivals of Drunkenness, which took place in homes, at temples and in makeshift desert shrines throughout ancient Egypt at least once and, in some places (including at the Temple of Mut), twice a year.

Bryan, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, presents her work in the second of a four-part lecture series tonight, under the auspices of the California Museum of Ancient Art. Under the title "Magic, Ritual and Healing in Ancient Egypt," Bryan's lecture (7:30 p.m. at Piness Auditorium inside Wilshire Boulevard Temple, 3663 Wilshire Blvd.) outlines the meaning and the mechanics of the Drunkenness Festivals.

Lectures Three and Four, on May 13 and 21, will feature two other acclaimed Egyptologists: Francesco Tiradritti of the University of Enna, Italy, and Dr. Benson Harer, past president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Tiradritti will lecture on Isis, Osiris' wife, and her magical powers. Dr. Harer will lecture on women's health concerns in ancient Egypt.

Before her lecture Monday, Bryan chatted with the Los Angeles Times about these widely observed rituals.