31 May 2023 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’

Banner
Related Post

In western Turkey, inscriptions and 2,500-year-old sculptures were found

11 July 2021

11 July 2021

Two 2,500-year-old marble statues and an inscription have been found during excavations at the ancient city of Euromos, in Turkey’s...

Turkey discovers 11 new major hills near famed Gobeklitepe “Potbelly Hill”

28 June 2021

28 June 2021

Turkey reported on Sunday the discovery of 11 new hills in the vicinity of the renowned ancient site of Gobeklitepe...

Silk Road archaeological discoveries draw attention despite the pandemic

20 June 2021

20 June 2021

A report prepared by more than 30 global experts believes that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, archaeological discoveries related to the...

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...

Oil drilling uncovers a 2,000-year-old cemetery with giant Urn-like tombs in Southwest Iran

16 July 2022

16 July 2022

An ancient cemetery with urn-like tombs was discovered in Ahvaz, the capital city of Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran. The...

Bronze Age and Roman-era settlements unearthed in Newquay

10 April 2023

10 April 2023

Archaeologists from the Cornwall Archaeological have uncovered ancient dwellings from the Bronze Age and a Roman period settlement in Newquay,...

Cave paintings discovered in western Turkey carry the region’s past back to prehistory

18 December 2021

18 December 2021

During the archaeological survey carried out in and around the ancient city of Alinda in Aydın province in western Turkey,...

A Christian monastery, possibly pre-dating Islam, found in UAE

6 November 2022

6 November 2022

A Christian monastery has been discovered on the island of Siniyah off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE),...

7,800-year-old female figurine discovered in Ulucak Höyük in western Turkey

8 August 2022

8 August 2022

A 7,800-year-old female figurine was found in the Ulucak Höyük (Ulucak Mound) in the Kemalpaşa district of Izmir. It was...

Bronze Age Wedge Tomb Discovered on the Dingle Peninsula maybe Even Older

22 April 2021

22 April 2021

A wedge tomb recently discovered on the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland was described by archaeologists as “quite unusual”. Wedge tombs...

Researchers excavating the burial site along Caleta Vítor Bay in northern Chile found an Inka Tunic or unku

15 February 2023

15 February 2023

A recently published study, co-authored by a research professor at George Washington University, looks at the Inka Empire’s (also known...

8,000-year-old Musical Instrument found in northwest Turkey

4 July 2021

4 July 2021

Archaeologists in northwestern Turkey’s Bilecik on Tuesday discovered a musical instrument that dates back to an estimated 8,000 years. During...

Human Relief Found at Million Stone Excavation Site in İstanbul

18 July 2021

18 July 2021

The Milion Stone (also known as the Million Stone) from the Eastern Roman period is one of important the historical...

Millennia-Old İron Production Facilities Found in Iran

2 May 2021

2 May 2021

Archaeologists have uncovered many millennia-old iron manufacturing sites in a historical village in southcentral Iran. A local tourism official declared...

Researchers discover America’s oldest mine

23 May 2022

23 May 2022

Archaeological digs headed by Wyoming’s state archaeologist and including University of Wyoming experts have revealed that people began producing red...

Comments
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *