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

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN ALABASTER JAR, OLD KINGDOM, 5TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF DJEDKARA, 2414-2375 B.C. Of tapering cylindrical form, rising from a narrow flat base through gently swelling sides to a slightly everted rim. The exterior is finished to a soft polish that reveals the natural banding of the stone, with pale honey tones giving way to creamy white veins running diagonally across the body. Two small lug handles are set just below the rim, each pierced for suspension. The interior is hollowed in a single tapering bore that follows the line of the exterior wall. The surface retains traces of earthen encrustation, and an old break runs vertically through the body, with a second fissure visible at the lower zone. The vessel belongs to the wider tradition of Egyptian hardstone containers produced for the storage of unguents, oils, and cosmetic preparations. The pierced lug handles indicate that the jar was intended to be suspended by cord, a practical detail consistent with smaller toilet and offering vessels of the Old Kingdom. The form, with its tall proportions and restrained profile, follows a type developed in the Early Dynastic period and refined through the 4th and 5th Dynasties, when alabaster vessels reached a level of technical accomplishment rarely surpassed in later production. The stone itself, properly Egyptian calcite, was quarried at Hatnub in Middle Egypt and at quarries in Wadi Gerrawi, and its use carried weight beyond the practical. Calcite was associated with purity and ritual cleanliness, and its translucency was prized for vessels intended to hold sacred oils used in temple cult and funerary offering. Royal and high-status workshops controlled access to the finer veins, and finished vessels in this material frequently appear among the burial equipment of court officials and members of the royal family. The reign of Djedkara Isesi, late in the 5th Dynasty, saw continued royal patronage of stone vessel production, with examples bearing his name recovered from contexts at Saqqara and Abusir. The lug-handled jar, drilled out from a single block of banded calcite and finished by hand to a quiet polish, exemplifies the Old Kingdom approach to stone vessel making, in which the natural figuring of the material is allowed to carry the decorative weight and the form is reduced to its essential profile. Vessels of this type, modest in scale but exacting in execution, stand among the most characteristic products of 5th Dynasty workshops. Height: 14cm

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