Seminar "The Old Kingdom Abroad: Petrography Results of Imported Ceramic Jars from Giza"

Description

The so-called Combed Ware jar is a ceramic hallmark of Levantine commodity exchange during the Early Bronze Age. Significant quantities are known from elite tombs of the Fourth to Sixth Dynasties at different sites in Egypt, with the broadest chronological range of vessels coming from Giza. A large part of this material is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). These vessels have been subjected to archaeometric study, revealing origins in the Central Levant for much of the corpus examined. Yet the jars have never been investigated petrographically.

This paper presents the results of petrographic analysis on a number of Fourth Dynasty two-handled Combed Ware jars from Giza held in the MFA. The results enable a larger assessment of the origin of the vessels, and thus the nature of Levantine exchange patterns during the early Old Kingdom.

Period	13 Mar 2018
Held at	Department of Archaeology Seminar Series, University of Sydney, Australia
Degree of Recognition	Local