Day 2 - Decorated ceramic box






January 3, 2018 
Gallery 101 is filled with Predynastic objects, including: ceramic pots of various sizes and shapes; a wonderful, carefully-flaked obsidian fish blade; a low lugged jar made of fossiliferous limestone whose fossils give it a beautifully intricate surface; arrowheads; and strings of beads that include carnelian and remind me of the carnelian necklace my brother bought for me when he went to Egypt.

 What I want to write about, though, is a rectangular ceramic painted box from the late Naqada period (3500-3300 B.C.). It is small- maybe 7 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 2.5 inches high. I like it not because, unlike many objects in the gallery, it is spectacularly well made- in fact, it bows out a bit on one side. But I can imagine the pleasure the painter took in decorating it. The top is divided by 4 lines into five horizontal bands or registers (is “register” the proper technical term?) . The top and bottom bands have the same design, a series of low mound- or beehve-like forms alternating with curved lines that look like bent reeds or shepherds' crooks. But in the top register, the beehives and crooks grow up from the line that creates the band and the crooks face right. On the bottom, the beehives and crooks grow down from the line, and the crooks face left.  The second and fourth registers are similarly symmetrical but opposite, with the decorations in each consisting of 12 sets of two parallel lines. In the second register, the lines make a slight V angle to the left (so in contrast to the rightward facing curves of the crooks in the register above). In the fourth register, the lines angle rightward, again in contrast to the leftward direction of the crooks in the bottom register. The middle register consists of several inverted Vs, each composed of 3 parallel lines. These look irregular and less careful than the designs in the other registers. Maybe the painter had just run out of steam (or ideas) by then. But it's easy to guess that he (I'm assuming it was a "he") took pride in his simple, pleasing design and his modest powers of invention.

 The sides of the box are also divided into five registers of alternating V's and  beehives. I'm sure I could write more about these, but enough is enough!
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Only afterwards do I wonder what the box was used for and where it was found. I also note that potters made wonderfully rounded, symmetrical objects without benefit of a wheel.

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