This flaring vessel with a flat disk-lid was for ointment (medjet or merhet). The larger mouth of the vessel made it easier to scoop the ointment out with fingers. The flat lid was secured with a tie.^[1] These vessels were commonly made of travertine but also of faience, wood, and other colored stone. Some examples are banded with gold. This example is made of beautiful, blue-gray anhydrite, or “blue marble,” a calcium sulfate that was favored for ointment jars from the Middle Kingdom into the Second Intermediate Period. Its source within Egypt is unknown.^[2]1

Evolution of the Form of Ointment Jars

The flat-topped, tapering shape of ointment jars like cat. 55 stayed essentially the same, with only minor modifications over the millennia. Indeed, the profile of the jar was so closely associated with ointment that the hieroglyphic sign for that substance, 𓎯, was in the form of the container. The shape may be derived from the Early Dynastic cylindrical vessels that had straight or slightly tapering sides, often with rounded lips (see cat. 51). In the Old Kingdom, the container was made in the same general form as the Chicago example, but with a wider, flat rim and often with a rounded base. From the Middle Kingdom onward, they generally had a simple, elegant taper, a narrow, flat rim, and no base.^[3] The Chicago example is beautifully made, with its interior bored out to follow the profile of the exterior. The lid has a projection on its underside to help seal the vessel.2

These ointment jars had both practical and ritual functions. They are often pictured in offering scenes when ointment was offered to the gods. Unguents stored in these jars were requested as funerary offerings in private mortuary texts. Examples in travertine dating to Dynasty 6 are inscribed in commemoration of royal jubilees, suggesting that their contents were somehow involved with that festival. Other examples bear the name “Seven Sacred Oils” in reference to oils that were used in embalming. In ancient Egypt, ointment was made of oils (castor, linseed, moringa, or sesame) that were scented with flowers or herbs.3

Provenance

Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894. 4

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 93.5

Ashley F. Arico, “Reading Ancient Egyptian Art: A Curator Answers Common Questions,” Art Institute of Chicago (blog), July 14, 2020.
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