A PREDYNASTIC EGYPTIAN RED GRANITE JAR CIRCA 3200-3000 B.C.

拍品描述

A PREDYNASTIC EGYPTIAN PORPHYRITIC STONE JAR, EGYPT, CIRCA 3200-3000 B.C. Of tall ovoid form, tapering from a broad shoulder to a narrow flat base, the body rising to a short neck and surmounted by a wide, flat, disc-shaped everted rim. Set on the shoulder are two small pierced lug handles placed diametrically opposite one another. The stone is a dark matrix densely flecked with pinkish-red and pale cream inclusions, the surface worked smooth and retaining a soft sheen consistent with hand-polishing against an abrasive. The walls are evenly hollowed, and the interior of the rim is dished to receive a stopper or sealing. The form belongs to the well-established Late Predynastic repertoire of hard-stone vessels with disc rims and shoulder lugs, a type in use across the Naqada II and Naqada III phases. The pierced lugs allowed the jar to be suspended or secured by cord, and the broad rim served to seat a lid or a tied membrane closure. The contents of such vessels, where preserved, were typically aromatic oils, resins, or unguents intended for funerary deposition or temple offering. The choice of material is the central point of significance. Working a hard, coarse-grained igneous stone of this kind required drilling the interior with a tubular reed or copper drill charged with abrasive sand, a process measured in weeks rather than days for a single vessel. The Predynastic Egyptians developed an unmatched mastery of this technology, and hard-stone jars of porphyry, diorite, basalt, and granite became one of the defining luxury productions of the late fourth millennium. Such vessels were buried in the tombs of the emerging elite at sites including Naqada, Hierakonpolis, and Abydos, where they signalled both the wealth required to commission them and access to the quarries of the Eastern Desert from which the stone was extracted. The speckled, polychromatic stones were particularly prized for the visual depth their inclusions gave to a polished surface, and vessels of this material continued to be valued into the First and Second Dynasties, when they were stockpiled in royal tombs in considerable numbers. This jar exemplifies the Late Predynastic hard-stone vessel tradition at the moment when the form, the material, and the technology converged to produce one of the earliest luxury goods of the Egyptian state. The combination of tapering ovoid body, pierced shoulder lugs, and broad flat rim is characteristic of the type that links the prestige burials of Naqada III to the stone vessel hoards of the early dynastic royal tombs. Height: 23.5cm

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