Small Jar

• First Thinite Dynasty
• Egypt
• ca. 2900 B.C.
• Calcite ("Egyptian alabaster")
• Height: 9.8 cm; max. diameter: 6.1 cm
• Formerly Josef Mueller collection, acquired before 1942.
• INV. 203-72

The Egyptians, major consumers of cosmetics, knew how to create a variety of receptacles suited for holding all the artifices of beauty, like this little flat-bottomed jar with no neck, bearing a slight decoration in geometrical shapes, done in raised relief.

The use of calcite, because of its softness, has always been very widespread. In addition, lodes of the mineral are abundant between Minia and Asyout, and there are many traces of extractive activity. Countless alabaster vases from the Predynastic and Thinite periods exist, and the vogue for them lasted throughout pharaonic civilization. But the range of uses for calcite vastly surpassed that of toilet articles. Architecture, funerary furnishings, and statuary offer many examples of works executed in that stone. Its appeal can also be explained by the variety of its striations, ranging in color from off-white to orangish yellow [1].

Published in: Butor and Valloggia 1990, pp. 119, 131.

• Michel Valloggia
• Le profane et le divin, arts de l’Antiquité. Fleurons du musée Barbier-Mueller, musée Barbier-Mueller & Hazan (éd.), 2008 : p. 314.
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