AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER JAR OLD KINGDOM, 5TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF DJEDKARA, 2414-2375 B.C.

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AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER JAR, OLD KINGDOM, 5TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF DJEDKARA, 2414-2375 B.C. Of tall tapering form, rising from a narrow rounded base and widening gradually to a slightly everted rim with a thickened lip. The walls are hollowed to an even thickness, the interior dressed smooth, and the exterior worked to a softly polished surface that retains the natural translucency of the stone. The body is traversed by undulating bands of cream, honey, and reddish-amber, the calcite's natural stratification running diagonally across the vessel and concentrating in warmer tones toward the rim. Minor pitting and small surface accretions are present, consistent with long burial. The jar belongs to a well-attested category of Old Kingdom funerary and offering vessels, produced in considerable numbers from the late Predynastic period through the close of the Old Kingdom. Forms of this type were employed in the storage of unguents, oils, and other commodities required for the cult of the deceased, and were deposited in mastaba tombs and pyramid complexes among the assemblages of stone vessels intended to serve the ka in perpetuity. The tall, slightly tapering profile with a low everted rim corresponds to a class associated with the 5th and 6th Dynasties, when stone-vessel production reached a level of refinement matched by few later periods. The choice of Egyptian alabaster, properly travertine calcite, was not incidental. Quarried principally at Hatnub in Middle Egypt, the stone was associated with purity and with the solar cult, and its translucency was understood to suit it to the holding of consecrated substances. Its working was a state-controlled undertaking, the quarries operating under royal authority and the finished vessels frequently inscribed with the names of kings. Vessels of this material in the Old Kingdom were thus objects of restricted production, distributed through court patronage and reserved for the burials of the king, his family, and the high officials of his administration. Under Djedkara Isesi, the penultimate ruler of the 5th Dynasty, the manufacture of inscribed alabaster vessels is documented in considerable quantity, several examples bearing his cartouche having survived in the funerary record. This jar exemplifies the restrained vocabulary of Old Kingdom stone-vessel production, in which the natural figure of the calcite is permitted to carry the decorative weight and the form is reduced to a single clean profile. It belongs to a tradition in which the value of the object resided in the material itself, the skill of its hollowing, and its participation in the funerary economy of the royal court. Height: 20.5cm

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