This selection of travertine vessels illustrates the range of the forms made during the late Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom. Travertine (also called Egyptian alabaster or calcite) was greatly favored in the Old Kingdom and continued to be used, albeit to a lesser extent, in later periods for small vessels because of its beautiful color, banding, and translucence (see also cats. 57–58). Travertine was found throughout Egypt, but the most famous source was at Hatnub in Middle Egypt. The walls of that quarry are marked with graffiti from the royal expeditions sent to recover the stone. An official of King Pepi II (reigned about 2225 BCE) wrote: “I went down to this Hatnub with 100 men; [that quarry] was being worked with 1,000 men.” Another official wrote that he sent “300 blocks of alabaster in one day … with my team … I went down to this desert with 1,600 men… .” It was also stated that these works were done “in accordance with what had been ordered in the [royal] Residence,” indicating that the quarries were under royal control.^[1] The way that valuable materials were transferred from royal control to private control is unclear, but it is very likely that many luxury goods, like finely worked alabaster jars, were the products of the royal workshops.1

The shapes of these stone vessels are closely related to some made of clay, indicating that they were made for elite consumers who had the resources to afford more expensive objects. All the vessels shown here are made of materials and have decorative features that far exceed what was required for their basic functionality as containers. Some are thin walled and others are embellished with carved decoration—characteristics that did not make them more durable (in fact, travertine is quite brittle) but rather made them more beautiful and prestigious.2

Stone vessels were found in tombs alongside more utilitarian clay vessels, but at least in some instances they were differentiated from them. For example, a Dynasty 1 tomb at Abydos contained nearly one hundred stone vessels as well as additional ceramic vessels. The stone vessels were grouped together near the head of the deceased and at the north wall of the tomb, while the ceramics were grouped separately on the tomb’s southern and western walls.^[2]3

It is not always clear what these vessels were used for or even if they were truly functional. They may have been decorative or intended as funerary offerings by virtue of their beauty and expense. Indeed, alabaster, without reference to the vessel’s content, is among the standard offerings requested by the deceased for the afterlife. Even those with a narrow mouth, suggesting they were intended to hold liquids or other substances that would evaporate in an open container, rarely have lids to protect their contents. The open forms (cats. 50, 52) certainly could have been used as drinking or serving bowls (in reliefs, people are shown drinking from bowls). The rounded bottoms of some of these vessels were not as impractical as they seem to us today. Floors in Egypt were rarely paved and may have been made of uneven pressed earth or dirt overlaid with sand or rushes, making it more convenient to have a round-bottomed vessel that could be nestled into the surface rather than a flat-bottomed one that would be unstable.^[3]4

Yet, a major obstacle to our understanding of how these luxury vessels were used is determining if they were used in daily life at all.^[4]5

The earliest of the forms illustrated by this group is the thin-walled bowl with a round bottom (cat. 50). This shape was very popular and has been discovered in great numbers at Saqqara and elsewhere in the northern part of Egypt. This form appears in the Predynastic Period (Naqada II) and continues to the end of the Old Kingdom.^[5] The round-bottomed form continued to be used but with some variation; by the Middle Kingdom a smaller, more delicate, and apparently expendable version in baked clay, just the size to nestle in a hand, was made in seemingly countless numbers.6

The cylindrical jar (cat. 51) has slightly concave sides, no foot, and a rounded rim, below which is a decorative band carved in raised relief. This type of vessel is an important diagnostic tool for the chronology of ancient Egypt. When archaeologist W. M. Flinders Petrie developed his “sequence dating,” the first effort at seriation, he arranged in a sequence over seven hundred different types of pottery he had excavated, based upon the change of their forms and which ones appeared or did not appear with others, to understand the development of styles over time.^[6] Although he did not assign firm dates to them, he did establish a sequence, the stages of which have since been associated with a range of dates.7

Cat. 51 is an example of a type of cylindrical vessel that marked the end of a long progression, originating with the full-bellied, baked-clay jug with a rim. The sides of that type of jar had two wavy, ledgelike handles. Over time, the jar became slenderer and the handles extended farther around the sides, eventually developing into a wavy pattern that encircled the exterior. In the final step, as seen on cat. 51, the wavy handles became a purely decorative band and the once full-bellied vessel developed into a tapering cylinder. At the end of Dynasty 4, this style of vessel was replaced by one with a slight foot, which then developed into a version with a foot and a wide, flat rim, before finally evolving into the classic flared ointment vessel of the Middle Kingdom (see cat. 55).8

Cylindrical vessels were very popular in the Early Dynastic Period, when they were made in large quantities. As with other luxury vessels, some of the excavated examples were found empty, a sign that they were valued for their intrinsic beauty beyond their function as containers.9

The two squat jars (cats. 52–53) show considerable variation. The one with the open form (cat. 52) allowed the artisan to hollow it out, creating thin walls that increased the translucence of the stone. An additional design element is the rim that rises above the softly rounded shoulder. This shape was in vogue throughout the Old Kingdom.^[7] The rounded bottom suggests that this open form could have been used as a drinking vessel.10

The other squat jar (cat. 53), with high rounded shoulders and a flat base, has a narrow mouth with a sharply undercut rounded “cusp rim.”^[8] The small mouth made it too difficult to hollow out the interior, resulting in thick walls that give the vessel an opaque appearance. These small-scale vessels with small mouths do not seem functionally practical and do not have lids, suggesting that they were decorative or were used for a funerary or ceremonial purpose. This form has been recovered from sites in northern Egypt and as far south as Naga ed-Deir.^[9] 11

The round jar with a short, flaring neck and flat, narrow rim (cat. 54) demonstrates how the artisan solved the problem of creating a hollow interior in a round vessel with a very small mouth by carving it in two pieces—the body of the jar, and the neck and rim. Since the separately created body had a wider aperture than the mouth, the artisan had better access to the interior of the vessel and was able to bore a larger cavity in the interior of the jar. Then the two parts were cemented together. This technique was also used to add necks and rims. In some cases, the body of the vessel itself was also made in two pieces. Some examples even combine different stones for the upper and lower sections of the vessel.^[10] 12

Provenance

50.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.13

51.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.14

52.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.15

53.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892.16

54.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in Egypt, 1892. 17

Publication History

50.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 91.18

51.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 91.19

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 18, 19 (ill.), 20.20

52.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 91.21

53.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 91.22

54.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 92, 93 (ill.).23

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 18, 19 (ill.), 20.
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