Decorated Faience Tiles

In my last post, I mentioned that the topic of my PhD research and recent monograph dealt with the rekhyt-people. Therefore, it seems only natural that my opening object blog post deals with them! Firstly, a brief introduction to this group of people.

It is commonly accepted that the rekhyt-people are to be identified as the lowest class of society in ancient Egypt and have been called “subjects”, “common people”, “plebeians”, or “mankind”. While their appearance can take several forms, they are most often represented as lapwings with human hands raised in adoration. In particular, they appear in the form of a rebus reading dwȝ rḫyt nbt, "all the rekhyt-people adore", often before the cartouche(s) of the pharaoh who sponsored the monument (fig. 1). The lapwing is one of the earliest and most easily identifiable birds in Egyptian art, being depicted in both hieroglyphs and reliefs from the Protodynastic Period through Roman times.

Fig 1: Rekhyt rebus of Ramesses II at Luxor Temple

While searching through the photos of the objects in the Egypt Centre collection over Christmas, I noticed that one of our faience tiles (EC398c) contained a fragmentary lapwing figure in the form of the rekhyt rebus (fig. 2). While not particularly obvious, the tile depicts the lower part of the lapwing's body and foot directly above a nb-basket (the word for "all"). The basket is decorated with small squares, which would have been filed with multi-coloured pieces of faience. Some of the mortar used to affix these small squares is still present on the object. What's more, while looking through further faience tiles in the Egypt Centre collection, I found another fragment (EC397b) that has the unmistakable foot of a lapwing with part of the star hieroglyph (meaning "adore") directly above (fig. 3)! In the case of the latter fragment, the white inlay is now almost completely missing from the blue faience matrix.

Fig. 2: EC398c

Fig. 3: EC397b

Such multi-coloured tiles in the form of the rekhyt rebus are well known from the Ramesside Period. In particular, they have been excavated within the memorial temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu and his palace at Tell el-Yahudia (Leontopolis) in the Delta. Undoubtedly, the most wonderful example of these tiles is housed in the Cairo Museum (JdE 33968). Though its provenance is uncertain, this multi-coloured tile demonstrates the high degree of craftsmanship involved in the creation of these objects (fig. 4).

Fig. 4: Cairo JdE 33968

So, how were these tiles used and what was their function? Well, it seems that they were used to flank doorways, particularly those of the palace or leading to it. The memorial temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu is a prime example, with the lower jambs of the doorway leading from the first court of the temple towards the palace decorated with friezes of lapwing tiles. Doorways with flanking rekhyt figures are first attested during the Eighteenth Dynasty and continue through the Roman era (fig. 5). Their purpose was to ensure the perpetual adoration of the rekhyt-people for their pharaoh, thus ensuring that maat (cosmic order) is maintained!

Fig. 5: Lapwings flanking a doorway of the temple of Khonsu at Karnak

Bibliography
Griffin, K. (2012) ‘Lapwing Tiles’. In Between Heaven and Earth. Birds in Ancient Egypt, ed. R. Bailleul-LeSuer. Oriental Institute Museum Publications 35. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 140–142.
——— (2015) ‘Links Between the Rekhyt and Doorways in Ancient Egypt’. In Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, 22–29 May 2008, ed. P. I. Kousoulis and N. Lazaridis. Orientalia lovaniensia analecta 241. Leuven: Peeters. 1115–1129.
——— (2018) 'All the Rḫyt-people Adore': The Role of the Rekhyt-people in Egyptian Religion. Golden House Egyptology 29. London: Golden House Publications.
Hayes, W. C. (1937) Glazed Tiles From a Palace of Ramesses II at Kantīr. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Papers 3. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Lewis, T. H. (1882) ‘Tel-el-Yahoudeh (the mound of the Jew)’. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 7: 177–192.