A New Kingdom Painted Vessel Imitating Stone

The blog post for this week has been written by Jess Evans, a second year Undergraduate student at Swansea University, studying a BA in Egyptology and Classical Civilisation. This semester Jess has discovered a love for archaeology (which she had never tried before!), through both her module “Introduction to Egyptian Archaeology” (CLE214), taught by Dr Christian Knoblauch, and the SUPP project.

This past semester, I was lucky enough to be involved with the Swansea University Pottery Project (SUPP), organised by Dr Christian Knoblauch and Dr Ken Griffin. The SUPP is a long-term project organized by the Egypt Centre, staff, and students at the School of Heritage, History, and Classics and the research group for Object and Landscape Centred Approaches to the Past (OLCAP). It aims to provide complete, up-to-date information on the Egypt Centre’s extensive pottery collection, which forms around a fifth of the total collection. This information will be recorded on the Egypt Centre’s online collection platform Abaset to be available for research, as well as to the general public for anyone that is curious about their collection.

As a student of the Department of Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology working on this project, I have had the incredible opportunity to engage with some of the Egypt Centre’s pottery face-to-face and help update and contribute to their catalogue information on Abaset. One particular vessel that I and my fellow student Molly have encountered is a very interesting New Kingdom painted pottery dummy vessel. The carries the inventory number W1291 and is decorated with red and yellow varnish on top of a coat of a white layer, appearing to imitate breccia stone (fig. 1). It is 154mm high and 117mm wide. In 1906 it was purchased by Wellcome from the collection of Robert de Rustafjaell and is now on long-term loan to the Egypt Centre.

Fig. 1: Pottery vessel W1291 from the Egypt Centre

The collection also contains another dummy vessel (EC4010), which seems to imitate glass (fig. 2). This one is 96mm high and 80mm wide. Like W1291, this vessel was also purchased by Wellcome. It came from the Frankland Hood Collection, most of which originate from Thebes. The object’s sales catalogue suggests that the vessel may be from the New Kingdom, which would fit with the popularity of dummy vessels during this period in funerary contexts.

Fig. 2: Pottery vessel EC4010 from the Egypt Centre

 

The reason for the creation of this kind of object is still largely a mystery; why create pottery vessels that imitate those made of stone when one can simply possess the original object? Likely the first conclusion that comes to mind is that vessels made of pottery were easier to produce and obtain, so may have acted as cheaper versions of popular funerary objects. This would be understandable if the objects were found almost exclusively in the tombs of the lower classes, but many of these vessels were found in those of the New Kingdom elite, such as KV 46, belonging to the parents of Queen Tiye (Yuya and Thuya). Their tomb possessed twenty-seven dummy vessels – of three forms – some made of wood and some of terracotta, all painted to imitate different materials (fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Dummy vessels from the tomb of Yuya and Thuya

 

The vessels are of a similar style to the dummy vessels found in KV 46. This form was typical for stone vessels of the New Kingdom (Aston 1994, 154). The original report on the KV 46 tomb findings provides a description of these objects. One was reportedly “painted white and varnished, the varnish having turned a bright brown” (Davis 1907, 32), a description that sounds similar to W1291 (fig. 4). If the vessel is of the same style as this one, its original rim (now missing) would have resembled that of the drawing provided in the tomb findings, along with EC4010’s rim. There were also four vessels that imitate “blue” and “blue-green” (see Davis, p. 32) glass, as EC4010 does. The similarities between these vessels suggest that the Egypt Centre vessels likely have a similar date and context to these ones! There were also other pottery and wooden vessels of the same form painted to resemble alabaster. Two other forms of dummy vessels were found in the tomb, one type painted to imitate alabaster and blue or dark blue glass, and the other black and white diorite and red and white breccia.

Fig. 4: Dummy vessel from the tomb of Yuya and Thuya

 

Further examples of New Kingdom dummy vessels have been found in a variety of other contexts, such as a set of four limestone vessels from the tomb of Huy, at the Dra Abu el-Naga necropolis (TT 14). He was a contemporary of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BCE) and may have been the “Sculptor of Amun”. These objects are a different style of dummy vessel; rather than replicating stone, they were made of stone but had no hollow interior, which would have reduced the amount of time and expense required to produce them. The Huy set all have elaborately decorated lids, depicting the head of Bes, an ox head, a frog and a calf. A fragment of another dummy vessel made from solid stone is in the Garstang Museum collection (E.586). The broken piece is made of limestone and inscribed with two vertical lines of hieroglyphs, declaring it to be the property of “The Overseer of the Fields of Amun, the Osiris, Nebseny” (fig. 5). This was an important title in the Eighteenth Dynasty and was associated with the Karnak temple.

Fig. 5: Illustration of how the Garstang Museum fragment would have fitted into the complete original vessel (© Garstang Museum)

 

The Metropolitan Museum of art also has four solid limestone dummy vessels that, like the Huy set, resemble the shapes of the Yuya and Thuya objects. They originate from KV 42 and are inscribed with the names of the Royal Nurse Senetnay and her husband Sennefer. All of them date to the reign of Amenhotep II (fig. 6).

Fig. 6: The Metropolitan Museum of Art vessels. Image from this catalogue entry

 

The Michael C. Carlos Museum has a dummy vessel (2006.047.003) made from wood and painted to resemble serpentine (fig. 7). According to the museum catalogue entry, it dates to the late Eighteenth Dynasty, but the context of discovery seems to be unknown. However, it may fit the trend of belonging to the Theban elite of this time. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art also has a dummy vessel of ceramic, which is painted to imitate another material (fig. 8). However, the catalogue entry does not indicate what that material might be. It appears to be in especially good condition and measures 308mm high. This one is also recorded as dating to the New Kingdom.

Fig. 7: Vessel imitating serpentine from the Michael C. Carlos Museum

Fig. 8: Vessel imitating stone from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

In this blog post I have attempted to collate some of the known examples of dummy vessels. This topic is a very intriguing one with many unanswered questions. Perhaps the main one surrounding the purpose of these vessels. Why would the Theban elite go to the trouble of creating vessels designed to resemble popular forms and styles when they could afford the real thing? Another mystery is why the creation of these vessels appears to be limited only to the New Kingdom.

 

I am extremely grateful to have worked on the SUPP project this past semester and to have had the luck to encounter vessel W1291. I would also like to extend my thanks to Dr Christian Knoblauch and Dr Ken Griffin for the opportunity to write this blog post and discover more about these fascinating objects!

 

Bibliography:

Aston, Barbara G. 1994. Ancient Egyptian stone vessels: materials and forms. Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 5. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.

Davis, Theodore M. (ed.) 1907. The tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou. Theodore M. Davis’ excavations: Bibân el Molûk. London: Constable.

Hayes, William C. 1959. The scepter of Egypt: a background for the study of the Egyptian antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part 2, the Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675–1080 B.C.) New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.