AN EGYPTIAN GRANODIORITE JAR PREDYNASTIC PERIOD, NAQADA III, CIRCA 3200-3000 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN GRANODIORITE JAR, PREDYNASTIC PERIOD, NAQADA III, CIRCA 3200-3000 B.C. Of squat, compressed globular form, the body rising from a rounded base to a pronounced carinated shoulder, surmounted by a short neck and a broad flat disc rim. Two lug handles are set diagonally opposed at the shoulder, each pierced with a single horizontal suspension hole. The stone is a dark matrix densely flecked throughout with large, irregular crystalline inclusions of pale feldspar, ranging from cream and ivory to soft pink and grey, distributed across the entire surface and the upper face of the rim. The vessel is worked to a smooth finish, with the contour of the shoulder and the underside of the rim cleanly defined, and the interior hollowed through the narrow mouth. The choice of stone is the defining feature of the object. Granodiorite, with its high content of large feldspar phenocrysts set against a darker hornblende and biotite groundmass, was prized in late Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt precisely for the visual effect seen here, where the natural crystalline pattern of the stone supplies the entire decorative scheme. No carved ornament was required, nor desired. The lug handles, pierced for cord suspension, indicate that the jar was intended to be carried or hung rather than set upon a surface, a practical feature retained from earlier ceramic and stone prototypes. The working of hard igneous stones into thin-walled, carefully proportioned vessels is among the highest technical accomplishments of late Predynastic Egyptian craft. Granodiorite, diorite, basalt, breccia, and porphyry were quarried in the Eastern Desert and at sites in the Aswan region, transported considerable distances, and reduced by abrasion using copper tools, sand, and stone borers. The labour involved in hollowing such a vessel through a narrow mouth, while preserving an even wall and a true profile, placed these objects within the sphere of elite consumption and funerary deposition. Stone vessels of this type are recovered in significant numbers from the cemeteries of Naqada, Abydos, and Hierakonpolis, where they accompanied high-status burials of the period immediately preceding the unification of Egypt under the First Dynasty. The taste for ornamental hardstones, in which the geological character of the material itself functioned as decoration, is one of the most distinctive aesthetic positions of the Naqada III horizon. It anticipates the lasting Egyptian preference for stones whose colour and pattern carried meaning, and establishes the technical foundation for the great stone vessel industry of the Early Dynastic period, which would fill the subterranean galleries beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara with tens of thousands of comparable pieces. This jar exemplifies the Predynastic Egyptian conception of the stone vessel as an object in which raw material, form, and craft are inseparable. The squat profile, the cleanly turned rim, and the pierced lug handles place it securely within the late Naqada III repertoire, while the choice of a heavily speckled granodiorite reflects the moment at which Egyptian stoneworkers were beginning to treat the geological character of the medium as the primary expressive element of the finished object. Diameter: 13.5cm Height: 7.5cm

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