EGYPT
Prehistoric, Negade I, 1st half 4th millennium BCE
Baked clay
36.8 x 21.0 (14.8) cm HØ (Ø opening)

The 4th millennium BCE was the pinnacle of Egyptian ceramics. The handmade vessels of the older Negade civilisation (1st half 4th millennium BCE) are especially characterised by their particular colours and shapes. The red and black effect is the most distinctive aspect of these simple earthenware vessels. While the corpus of the vessel is polished to a brilliant red, the edge has a shiny black appearance. This doubling of the colours was achieved in a single firing. To produce the reddish tone, the vessel was covered with ochre before firing and smoothed with a polishing stone. It was then turned upside down and stuck in the ashes of the kiln. The low oxygen fire that occurs here causes the characteristic blackening of the edge and the interior of the vessel. The remaining portion of the vessel turned a bright red due to the oxygen-rich oxidation process during the firing.

The most common beakers are more or less slender with thin lips and become narrower towards the bottom or have a small base on which they stand. These vessels are only larger than 50 cm in height. With a height of almost 40 cm, the vessel presented here is one of the largest examples of this type and clearly shows the two-fold colour technique described above.

This type of vessel was primarily used for storing provisions and was often buried along with the corpse in simple graves. It documents the intensive attention and care given to the deceased as well as the related belief in a continued existence in the afterlife at this early phase of civilisation. Along with the “red-figured” vessels, similar vessels were still produced during the later Negade civilisation.

André Wiese, 2011

Literature

Kaiser, Zur inneren Chronologie der Naqadakultur, Archaeologia Geographica 6, 1957, 69 ff. H. Kayser, Ägyptisches Kunsthandwerk. Ein Handbuch für Sammler und Liebhaber, Braunschweig 1996, 73 ff. A. Lucas, Black and Black-Topped Pottery, ASAE 32, 1932, 93 – 96. A. Lucas – J.R. Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, London 1989, 367 – 385, esp. 377 – 381. M. Page-Gasser – A. Wiese, Augenblicke der Ewigkeit. Unbekannte Schätze aus Schweizer Privatbesitz, Mainz 1997, 20 f., no. 2. Stiftung DKM, Ägypten _Egypt, Duisburg, 2011, 24 – 25, Kat.-Nr. 1.