Lot 3A
Ancient Egypt, Old Kingdom, Third Dynasty, ca. 2630 to 2611 BCE. One of the over thirty-thousand rectangular faience tiles found in the funerary complex of the Pharaoh Djoser. On the back is a projection used for stringing it together alongside other tiles before they were pressed into the plaster of the walls. The manufacture of so many tiles would have required extensive kilns, not to mention a tremendous amount of time and manpower - they are made of faience, which is a crushed quartz mix that could be moistened to shape and then heated to harden. Copper salts, turquoise stone, and other color materials were added to give these tiles their distinctive seafoam blue-green color. Size: 1.55" W x 2.45" H (3.9 cm x 6.2 cm)
Djoser's complex was located at Saqqarah (Saqqara), northwest of Memphis, and included the Step Pyramid that was Egypt's first pyramid and is the oldest preserved stone building of its size in the world. Buried underneath the pyramid was a maze of rooms and a burial chamber; part of this was a long hallway lined with artwork showing the king engaging in rituals. Framed around them were these tiles; we believe that they were meant to imitate reed matting from the walls of Djoser's palace. The purpose of this was to bring the king into a paradise in the afterlife, and the blue color of the tiles to call to mind water, a symbol of rebirth in ancient Egypt because of the cycle of the Nile.
Provenance: private Davis Collection, Houston, Texas, USA
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#132828
- Condition: Light surface wear with pitting as shown. Small chip from one corner and from one edge.
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