Egypt Exploration Society
A Bowl in the Nubian Museum, Aswan Author(s): S. A. M. Swain Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 77 (1991), pp. 165-167 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821962 . Accessed: 25/07/2014 12:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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BRIEFCOMMUNICATIONS A bowl in the Nubian Museum, Aswan A bowl in the Nubian Museumat Aswan appearsto be eclectic,combiningelementsfrom early Nubian and Predynastictraditions.The bowl, althoughfound in a grave of terminalA-group date, may be an heirloom, havingbeen made as a directresultof contactwith Egypt duringthe NaqadaIIc and Ildi periods. ON display in the Nubian Museum at Aswan is an unusual bowl (pl. XVI, 2). It first came to my attention in the summer of i988,1 and in the spring of I989 I was fortunate enough to travel to Aswan to study this, and other vessels, at first hand. I am most grateful to Mr Alfy Hinari, the Director of Museums in Upper Egypt, for allowing me to see the vessels, and for the welcome which I was accorded in Aswan. My thanks are also due to Mr Michael Murphy who provided photographs of the vessel. The particular bowl with which this article is concerned (Aswan 230, E26) was excavated by the Survey of Nubia in I910-I I.2 It comes from the east bank of the river, and was found in grave I, cemetery 142, about half a kilometre from the village of Naga Wadi, at the boundary between the Sayala and Mediq districts. The cemetery was only one of a number of similar burial sites in the area. The grave in which the bowl was found3 was rich and contained a considerable quantity of decorated and black polished pottery of non-Egyptian type, a number of copper implements, grinding stones, and quartz palettes. The grave itself was rectangular and large, being 330 cm in length, and I6o cm in width. It contained two burials, an adult skeleton lying in a contracted position on its left side, with the head facing south-south-west, and the arm bones of a child. The bowl was found lying apart from the main contents of the grave, behind the head of the adult, between a grinding table and a quartz palette. The cemetery has been dated to the Early Dynastic period, and the majority of the goods found in it suggest that grave I dates from the terminal A-group, although the scanty way in which it was published makes it very difficult to be certain about the date of the stone and copper artefacts. The pottery is, however, especially suggestive of a terminal A-group date, being largely of a fine, pale yellow ware, burnished over geometrical designs painted in red.4 The bowl, which is illustrated in the Survey of Nubia volume for I9Io-I I,5 is circular and shallow sided, with a rounded base, slightly flattened at the bottom. It is thin walled, about 4 mm in thickness, narrowing to 2 mm at the rim. The bowl, which seems to belong, at least in part, to a Nubian tradition, was hand-made, the rim being cut to shape, and the surface carefully smoothed to make it uniform. The vessel was well made, and is an excellent, regular shape, with a diameter of I8.4 cm. The type of clay is uncertain, since it was not possible to examine a fresh fracture, but it would appear to be a fine marl, containing few inclusions, and with an unmottled, pale, buff-pink surface. It is, of course, possible that the fabric was of a dark colour, treated with a pale slip to make it look like a marl clay, but there is no sign of such a slip flaking off, as is usual in cases where it has been used. The vessel has the appearance of being made from a homogeneous fabric, which has been self-slipped but not colour coated. The surface was unburnished. 1Whenit was pointedout to me by Mr M.Jones,to whom I am most grateful. 2C. M. Firth, TheSurveyofNubia, Reportfor igi0o-igii (Cairo, 1927). 3Firth,op. cit.,pl. 5b. 4J. D. Bourriau,Ummel-Ga'ab.Potteryfrom the Nile ValleybeforetheArab Conquest(Cambridge,I981), 99-
00.
5Firth,op. cit.,pl. 20.b.i.
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What makes the bowl especially interesting is the decoration of the interior. The paint used for the design was applied before firing, and on firing, it turned a red to maroon colour. The combination of a pale surface, contrasting with a design in deep red to maroon paint, recalls the Decorated ware of the Predynastic period in Egypt,6 which is further recalled by the design used, which seems certain to have been based upon the so called 'Naqada plant' motif.7 It has, however, been executed in a free and imitative form, which suggests acquaintance, but not familiarity, with the motif. The vessel is quite different from the thin, burnished material of the terminal A-group, which was also found in the grave. The bowl is significant because it combines elements which are typical of native Nubian pottery with a colour scheme and design based on Egyptian traditions. The unusual, non-Egyptian shape of the bowl, its thin walls, the total coverage of the interior with a design which enhances and exploits the vessel shape,8 and, to some extent, its find spot, all point to its Nubian origin, whilst the use of marl clay, as well as the painted design, suggest some Egyptian influence. It cannot, however, be claimed to have been of wholly Egyptian manufacture, because, although the design was undoubtedly of Egyptian origin, it was executed in a way which strongly suggests that the painter was not an Egyptian, but rather, someone who had seen and liked Egyptian Decorated ware, and was attempting to copy it. The presence of full-blown Egyptian vessels in Nubian graves9 shows that Nubian potters could have been acquainted with Predynastic Egyptian pottery, and the style of this bowl suggests that such an acquaintance had a certain influence on at least one potter, resulting in the production of an eclectic vessel, which combined Nubian and Egyptian characteristics. The 'Naqada plant' motif was characteristic of the pottery of Naqada II, and Kaiser's study of the relative dating of Predynastic pottery suggests that this style was introduced in Egypt during the Naqada IlIc period, continuing in use during Naqada IIdi.10This vessel, apparently influenced by a motif popular only in Naqada IIc-IIdi, was probably produced at a date only slightly later than that of the Egyptian prototypes, as a result of exposure to Egyptian vessels which were painted with the new, distinctive motif. There is no reason why this should not have been so, and it seems to me likely that if Egyptian pottery did influence the decoration of this vessel, it would have done so soon after the introduction of the new style in Egypt, rather than after a long time-lag, as Reisner has suggested.11 The vessel was probably made, therefore, during the Naqada IIc-IIdi periods, and not during the terminal A-group period, by which time the motif had passed out of use in Egypt. It is possible that such was the case, but the earlier date seems more plausible. This would appear to imply a long gap between the proposed Naqada IIc-Ildi date (c. 3300 Bc)12 for the production of the bowl, and its inclusion in a grave which also contained pottery of the terminal A-group, (c. 3000 Be).13 The most reasonable explanation for this would be that the vessel was an heirloom, a piece of much greater antiquity than the other contents of the grave, which was kept in circulation over a long period of time, and then buried at a date much later than that of its production. However, H. S. Smith has recently suggested that the currently accepted dating of the A-group may not be accurate, and that the whole period may start at a much earlier date than previously believed.14 If so, the vessel need not have been an heirloom, but rather a piece which was made during the A-group period as a result of contemporary contact with Egypt. This would also mean that the style of the vessel need not have been due to the continued use in Nubia of a style which 6W. M. F. Petrie, CorpusofPrehistoric PotteryandSlatePalettes(London, 1921), pls. xxxiii-xxxv.
7The plant has been variouslyidentifiedas an aloe and a banana.For the most recent discussion of the question,see L. Manniche,An AncientEgyptianHerbal(London, 1989), I 01. 8Bourriau,op. cit. 23. 9G. A. Reisnerand C. M. Firth, TheSurveyof NubiaReportfor I9o7-8 (Cairo,1911), 317-22. l0W. Kaiser,Archaeologia 6 (1957), 69-77 and especiallypl. 23. Geographica " Reisnerand Firth,op. cit. 320. 12M. A. Hoffman,EgyptBeforethePharaohs(New York, 1979), i6. 3 Bourriau,op. cit. 99- oo100. "4Smithhas communicatedto me a paper on this subjectto be published inI991 under the auspices of the BritishMuseum.
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had long gone out of use in Egypt. Until any new dating of the A-group is accepted, however, the vessel must be seen as an isolated piece, older than the other contents of the grave in which it was found, and made in an eclectic style under the influence of Egyptian pottery of Naqada IIc-IIdi date. S. A. M. SWAIN
An ushabti of the Viceroy of Kush Amenhotep* Publication of an ushabti of the little known Eighteenth Dynasty Viceroy of Kush Amenhotep in the BirminghamCity Museum. THEpiece which forms the subject of this short note (pl. XVII, I-4) was formerly in the Wellcome collection and is now in Birmingham City Museum, accession number g969Wi15o. Wellcome purchased it at the MacGregor sale and it appears in Sotheby's catalogue1 as the first item of lot I366: 'The upper part of a large Ushabti, in red sandstone, with deeply cut inscription'. It is not known how MacGregor acquired it and no details of its original provenance are given. Although several Eighteenth Dynasty viceroys were buried at Western Thebes, to claim such a provenance for this piece would be pure speculation. It is made from a hard, fine-grained and densely packed red sandstone. The extant height is i8.5 cm and the maximum width, at the shoulders, is 8.6 cm. The lower part has been broken off, probably in antiquity as it is an old break. There is some damage, again probably ancient, to the tip and right side of the nose and two small chips have been knocked out of the wig. There are traces of a slightly glossy black substance (varnish?) on the left-hand side of the face, the forehead, front and back of the wig and over parts of the inscription on the body. The scattered positioning of this suggests that it is unlikely to have been accidentally spilt on the object, and so it has to be assumed that it originally formed an all over coating. It was not uncommon for funerary objects to be coated in black varnish from the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards,2 though this would be an early example. The colour of it, black, served as a magico-religious identification with the body of Osiris. Iconographically the piece belongs to Schneider's class VA.3 It is mummiform and without hands, and therefore also without implements and basket. The figure wears a tripartite lappet wig, slightly longer at the front than at the back, but no beard. There is no indication of hair detail nor of the horizontal retaining bands. This form is common in the early New Kingdom and the 'massiveness' of the piece is characteristic of the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Although red sandstone is most typical of Nineteenth Dynasty ushabtis,4 such softer stones were used from the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty. Five horizontal lines of text are preserved around the back, sides and front of the piece: 'The shd,the King'sson (of Kush),aAmenhotep,justifiedbhe says, "0Othese ushabtis,if one detailsthe King's son (of Kush) and Overseer of SouthernLands Amenhotep for any of the works which are donec in the necropolis, as a man at his duty, then obstacles are implanted for him there, in order to make the fields grow, in order to irrigate the bankside lands,...".' aThe two strokes after nsw are presumably intended to stand for the egg and a stroke, hence the reading s;-nsw. The title imy-r hiswt rsyt in line 3 shows that the owner is a Viceroy (King's son) of Kush rather than a true prince of royal blood, as the earliest Overseers of Southern Lands also held the title s;-nsw (King's son). There is no evidence that these early Viceroys were true royal princes, however, and it seems likely that the *I am grateful to Dr K. A. Kitchen for comments on an earlier draft of this note. 1Sotheby's catalogue for 26-6-1922 and following days. 2H. D. Schneider, Shabtis (Leiden, I977), I, 239-40. 3 Schneider, op. cit. 185-7. 4 Schneider, op. cit. 234.
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I. Green glass dish in shape of Tilapia-fish, Ashmolean I989.85 (no. 284) MUSEUM ACQUISITIONS, I989 (p. I6 i)
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3. Girton College stela of Amenophis I A NEW KINGDOM STELA (pp. 169-75)
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