<em>Miniature Amphora</em>, ca. 1479–1400 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 5 5/8 x Diam. 4 7/16 in. (14.3 x 11.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.474. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.07.447.474_NegA_print_bw.jpg)

Miniature Amphora, ca. 1479–1400 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 5 5/8 x Diam. 4 7/16 in. (14.3 x 11.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.474. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.07.447.474_NegA_print_bw.jpg)

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Miniature Amphora

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

On View: Egyptian Orientation Gallery, 3rd Floor

Pottery Manufacture

Available materials, construction technique, and even social status all played a role in the manufacture of pottery.

Most ancient Egyptian towns had at least one skilled potter who served the entire community. Palaces, estates, and temples employed dozens of craftsmen to fashion luxury and ritual wares.

Potters used two principal materials: alluvial silt (soil deposited by the floodwaters of the Nile) and soft desert shale called marl. Silt contains iron oxides and fires red; marl, rich in calcium carbonate, fires to a buff color. To make both clays more workable, potters added straw, crushed stone, or pulverized pottery.

Potters constructed vessels by hand or on a wheel. Hand building involved shaping the clay manually and with simple tools. To create vessels on a wheel, artisans rotated the clay rapidly on a low, flat turntable and let centrifugal force pull it into shape. Spiral marks, evident on several examples in this case, indicate wheel manufacture.

MEDIUM Clay, pigment

Possible Place Collected: Esna, Egypt

DATES ca. 1479–1400 B.C.E.

DYNASTY Dynasty 18

PERIOD New Kingdom

DIMENSIONS 5 5/8 x Diam. 4 7/16 in. (14.3 x 11.3 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 07.447.474

CREDIT LINE Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Egyptian Orientation Gallery, 3rd Floor

CAPTION Miniature Amphora, ca. 1479–1400 B.C.E. Clay, pigment, 5 5/8 x Diam. 4 7/16 in. (14.3 x 11.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 07.447.474. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.07.447.474_NegA_print_bw.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.07.447.474_NegA_print_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013

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RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

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