AWT Conference 2011 Review: Glass Faience and Pottery Making at Amarna (Paul Nicholson)
Published on Egyptological, Magazine Reviews, Edition 3, 7th December 2011
Review by Kate Phizackerley.
[O45.1: An Ancient Industrial Estate]
Image: Egyptian Glass and Faience (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Introduction
As described in the overview of the 2011 AWT Conference which I co-authored with Andrea Byrnes (see bottom of this review), Dr Paul Nicholson spoke about his excavation of the Amarna site designated O45.1, which was, for a time, used for the production of pottery, faience and glass. Previously the site had been a cemetery and by the end of the Amarna period had changed usage again to become what Nicholson described as a “casemate” site, although he didn’t say what this meant. [Andrea heard “casement” instead, although this is no clearer.] Nicholson mentioned these earlier and later usages in passing but spoke in detail only about the industrial phase.
O45.1
The site O45.1 lies in the main city alongside the main thoroughfare, about 200m SW of the Small Aten Temple, placing it a similar distance SSW of the Great Palace. Questioned about the closeness of a potentially noisy and smelly facility so close to the palace, Nicholson said it was probably a deliberate wish to keep a strategic resource under close oversight and Barry Kemp interjected to add that the prevailing wind would blow smoke and odours away from the palace.
Excavations by Nicholson revealed a number of small kilns and two larger furnaces. The area had been excavated previously by Flinders Petrie so Nicholson drew upon Petrie’s notes to supplement his findings. Nicholson showed some of the moulds found on the site, but Petrie had found very large numbers which he reburied in a cache which, in spite of a search, has not yet been relocated. No large workshop buildings were discovered but Nicholson reminded the room that the Egyptian climate is suited to working outside, so workshops may not have been required.
Pottery
Unsurprisingly, Nicholson talked first about the kilns that he identified as used for firing pottery, although he reported difficulty in precisely differentiating between kilns that had been used for firing pottery and those that had been used for the manufacture of faience. The kilns have clay floors overlying mud brick and walls consisting of a single layer of mud bricks, which he believed had come from an earlier demolished kiln. It is likely that kilns had a limited useful lifespan before replacement was necessary.
The evidence for pottery making is provided by finds of unfired pottery and some clay waste marked with scratchings from having been shaped on a wheel. Nicholson described how there has been some academic debate whether an Egyptian wheel was fast enough to throw pots (rather than being merely a turntable), but he reported...
