18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Polish researchers reveal what ancient Egyptian faience has to do with gold

Powdered quartz used to make faience vessels discovered by Polish archaeologists during excavations in the ancient city of Athribis in Egypt’s Nile Delta came from tailing heaps left over from gold mining, according to scientists from the University of Warsaw and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University.

Tell Atrib (Athribis) was an important political center in the Nile Delta. It was an ancient city in Lower Egypt, just northeast of Benha on the hill of Kom Sidi Yusuf. The Polish-Egyptian archaeological mission operating there in the years 1985-95 discovered the remains of baths, craft workshops, and an ancient villa.

During excavations by a Polish-Egyptian archaeological mission between 1985-95, archaeologists found the remains of craft workshops and kilns.

Kilns caught the researchers’ attention. What they might have been used for was unclear. Researchers assumed that faience vessels were fired in them, as those were also discovered by Polish researchers. Egyptian faience is the term used to describe objects made of a sintered-quartz ceramic material.

A new National Science Centre-funded research project on Tell Atrib faience products, led by engineering geologist Magorzata Zaremba of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyski University in Warsaw, has confirmed that some of the kilns could be used to fire faience vessels at temperatures ranging from 1050 to 1150 degrees Celsius.


Egyptian vessels discovered in Tell Atrib, photo from: F. Welc, 'Tell Atrib 1985-1995 IV. Faience Objects. PAM Monograph Series 5'
Egyptian vessels discovered in Tell Atrib, photo from: F. Welc, ‘Tell Atrib 1985-1995 IV. Faience Objects. PAM Monograph Series 5’

The researchers analyzed the chemical composition of seven fragments of 2,000 years old bowls that were covered with a glaze giving them a blue colour and shine. They are decorated with convex and concave motifs typical of Egyptian, Greek and Oriental cultures: from geometric patterns and floral patterns (lotus flowers, leaves, etc.) to figural scenes.

The composition of the vessels was precisely ascertained by the researchers involved in the project. The ingredients used to make faience items in ancient Egypt included approximately 90% powdered quartz, approximately 4% burnt lime and bone meal mixture, approximately 2% river fluvisol, 2% gelatine, 1% feldspar flour, and 1% lead sulphide. Each of these components served a crucial purpose during the firing process. For example, gelatine gave the mixture its plasticity.

“All the ingredients for the production of the vessels came from Egypt, but that included its more distant regions. All the samples of faience bowls from Tell Atrib we analysed had been made of high-quality quartz powder from gold-bearing veins in the Eastern Desert in Egypt,” says Zaremba.

The quartz for the production of faience came from heaps formed after gold mining, meaning that it was obtained from the mines in the Eastern Desert. These sites are located 500-600 km from Tell Atrib, between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley.

According to Zaremba, so far no one has attempted such a comprehensive analysis of faience items, especially their cores, hence the lack of data that could be compared.

Photo: Małgorzata Zaremba

“However, the research methodology we have developed and the obtained results may encourage other researchers to conduct further interdisciplinary research on faience objects, not only from the Ptolemaic Period,” she adds.

Faience items were very popular throughout the long history of ancient Egypt. Blue and green figurines, pendants, and amulets, e.g. in the shape of the key of life – ankh, were being made of faience in Egypt for several thousand years. To this day, scientists have not determined the exact recipe and production method. Souvenirs stylized as faience products are now sold at tourist stalls at famous monuments, such as the Giza pyramids or the Luxor Temple.

The oldest items made this way in Egypt come from the times of the builders of the first pyramids, over 4,500 years ago. The technology flourished in the middle of the second millennium BCE and later, during the reign of Hatshepsut and Ramesses the Great.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15186251

PAP

Cover photo: Egyptian vessels were discovered in Tell Atrib. Photo from: F. Welc, ‘Tell Atrib 1985-1995 IV. Faience Objects. PAM Monograph Series 5’

Related Articles

Bone workshop and oil lamp shop unearthed in Aizanoi ancient city in western Turkey

13 November 2021

13 November 2021

Archaeologists have unearthed a bone workshop and an oil lamp shop in an Aizanoi ancient city in the Çavdarhisar district...

Remarkable Roman mosaic discovered near London Bridge in Southwark

22 February 2022

22 February 2022

A team of archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology have announced the discovery well-preserved Roman mosaic that may have...

Archaeologists, First-ever Roman-era Tombs Dug Directly into the Rock Uncovered in Al Bahnasa, Egypt

8 January 2024

8 January 2024

Spanish archaeologists made a ground-breaking discovery of rock-hewn Ptolemaic and Roman tombs, mummies, coffins, golden masks, and terracotta statues in...

Anthropologists say humans have been using personal ornaments to communicate about themselves without the fuss of conversation – for millennia

24 September 2021

24 September 2021

Anthropologists believe that for millennia, individuals have used personal decorations to communicate about themselves without the hassle of dialogue. They...

Archaeologists uncovered a second mosaic in Rutland Roman villa in England

29 November 2022

29 November 2022

Archaeologists report they have uncovered a second mosaic at the site of the 2020 mosaic discovery at the Roman villa...

Marmore, the Highest and Oldest Artificial Waterfall in Europe, Created by the Romans

4 March 2024

4 March 2024

Approximately eight kilometers away from the town of Terni in Umbria, Italy, there is a waterfall that is one of...

Ritual Sacrifice of Pregnant Woman: Ecuador may Reflect the Community’s Fear of Her Power

28 January 2025

28 January 2025

In a remarkable archaeological find in Ecuador, researchers have uncovered the rich burial of a pregnant woman and her fetus,...

300 Year Old “Exceptional” Prosthesis made of Gold and Copper and wool Discovered in Poland

14 April 2024

14 April 2024

Something novel has been discovered by Polish archaeologists working on the excavation of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi...

Ancient Tombs and 2-Meter Sarcophagus with Hieroglyphics Unearthed Near Aga Khan Mausoleum in Aswan

11 July 2025

11 July 2025

A joint Egyptian-Italian archaeological team has unearthed a significant collection of ancient rock-cut tombs near the Aga Khan Mausoleum on...

The Volcanic Eruption Caused the Abandonment of the Ancient City of Berenike

30 March 2021

30 March 2021

In 275 BC, Egyptian King Ptolemy II (Philadelphos) established a shipping port on the coast of the Red Sea and...

Archaeological Dig at Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre Corroborates New Testament Account of Garden

3 May 2025

3 May 2025

A significant archaeological excavation nearing its conclusion at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City has yielded...

Germany: 700-year-old Causeway Found Under Central Berlin Street

19 February 2022

19 February 2022

Archaeologists from the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (LDA) made a sensational find during their excavation at Molkenmarkt: about 2.50 m below Stralauer...

A wash-basin decorated with 2500-year-old Mythological creatures and Chariot races was discovered in Izmir, Turkey

28 September 2022

28 September 2022

Unique ceramic figures were discovered in the excavations carried out this year in the ancient city of Klazomenai in the...

Ancient Sarmatian Treasures, Including 370 Grams of Gold Bracelet, and Burial Sites Discovered in Kazakhstan’s Atyrau Region

10 February 2025

10 February 2025

During excavations at the Karabau-2 mound in Kazakhstan’s Atyrau region, archaeologists made a remarkable discovery, unearthing nine graves—seven of which...

Turkey to Present 12 Historic Artifacts to Istanbul Patriarch

10 August 2021

10 August 2021

The government said on Monday that Turkey will deliver stolen icons from ancient local churches to Istanbul’s Fener Greek Patriarch...