Red ceramic with black border

• Egypt
• Naqada I culture
• Amratian Period (ca. 4000 B.C.)
• Terra cotta
• Height: 21.8 cm, diam. of the opening: 11.2 cm
• Formerly Josef Mueller collection, acquired before 1942.
• INV. 203-88

This tall, flat-bottomed vase with flared sides bears a small nick at the neck. This ceramic, fashioned by hand, is distinctive for the floral decoration incised at the foot of the receptacle. Commonly produced during the Amratian Period, these red vases with black borders were diffused over a large geographical area of Egypt and over a vast period of time. Their characteristic two-color contrast was obtained by a special firing method.

Initially, the vase was glazed with ocher and smoothed with stone-polishing tools. Then, during the firing, the receptacle was placed upside down on the fire source and half covered with fuel. The black color on the inside of the pottery and on its outer wall was the result of carbonization, while the other part turned red during firing through the oxidation of iron particles contained in the clay. From that firing process a palette of blacks and reds emerged, randomly distributed over the surface of these vases [1].

Published in: Butor and Valloggia 1990, pp. 107, 130.

• Michel Valloggia
• Le profane et le divin, arts de l’Antiquité. Fleurons du musée Barbier-Mueller, musée Barbier-Mueller & Hazan (éd.), 2008 : p. 307.
•