This short, squat jar with a wide, thin, flat rim was used to store an eyeliner or eye shadow known as kohl. The small size and distinctive shape of the jar were appropriate because kohl was dense and was used in small amounts. The flat, disklike lid has a short projection on its underside that fits the opening to prevent the lid from slipping off and to keep air out so that the cosmetic would not dry out. The mouth of the jar is very narrow—just large enough to insert a finger or a slender applicator wand made of wood, metal, ivory, or faience.^[1] This jar is made of a single piece of travertine (also referred to as Egyptian alabaster or calcite). Rather than the interior wall following the contour of the exterior, the cavity is a single, cylindrical core that was drilled out, a time-saving technique indicating that this jar was not of the highest quality. The jar still holds a dark gray powder.1

Development of Kohl Jars

Unlike other stone or baked-clay containers, the distinctive shape of the kohl jar was modified only slightly over the centuries, making the jars difficult to date with precision. The low, squat shape with a thin, wide, flat rim and usually without a flared base appeared in the First Intermediate Period and continued to be produced throughout the early Middle Kingdom. In the later Middle Kingdom, the form gradually evolved into that of the Chicago example (cat. 56)—a taller shape with lower, sloping shoulders and a flared base, a style that continued into the middle of Dynasty 18.^[2] The general shape, with its flat or slightly domed disk lid, was so closely associated with kohl that these jars could appear on reliefs as offerings without a label identifying their contents (for an example of an unlabeled kohl jar on a relief, see cat. 8).2

Middle Kingdom jars tend to be more carefully made than later examples, their interior hollowed out to follow the contour of the exterior, whereas many of the New Kingdom examples have only a core bored from the interior, as does this example.^[3] By the middle New Kingdom, the squat kohl jar was generally replaced by a cylindrical container or a group of tubes, often of faience or wood, that held different colors of liner. Their openings were sealed by lids that swiveled on pins. Some of these containers are labeled with their contents, providing the ancient names for different substances.3

Materials

Kohl pots were made of stone, most commonly travertine or other colored stones, but also of faience, wood, and pottery. Some stone examples were made in two pieces, with the lower part of the vessel joined to a separate rim. Among the most elaborate kohl containers are those made of glass in the form of a palm tree–shaped (palmiform) building column (see cat. 59). Even more fanciful little containers, many made of anhydrite but also of steatite, ceramic, or wood, took the form of monkeys.4

Kohl

Kohl (or mesdemet in ancient Egyptian), like other cosmetics, was worn by both men and women from the Predynastic Period onward.^[4] Indeed, the dramatic cosmetic lines around the eye and extending from the side of the eye along the temple are some of the most iconic aspects of ancient Egyptian representations of humans. Even today, heavy eyeliner is often referred to as a “Cleopatra look.” Kohl was available in two colors. Green, the earlier of the two, was made of ground malachite and was more popular in the Old Kingdom; in some cases it was applied in broad strokes below the eyes.^[5] Throughout the Middle Kingdom and into the New Kingdom, green became less popular and was replaced by a black or gray pigment made of ground galena.^[6] Kohl was considered to enhance the wearer’s appearance, but it was also thought to have an antiseptic value and to reduce the glare from the sun.5

Provenance

Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894.6

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 94.7

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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