May 10-July 5 1998

Gifts of the Nile

Lawrence M. Berman, Curator of Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art

Take sand, add a little salt (natron), a touch of lime, and some colorant. Bake it, bury it, or glaze it, and you get Egyptian faience. Faience is as typically Egyptian as pyramids and obelisks; it is, in fact, older than the pyramids. The Egyptian word for it was tjehenet, "that which is dazzling, gleaming," like the sun in the sky. It was prized for its brilliant luster, and although the ingredients were not in themselves precious, the recipe for combining them, then firing them, carving them, and adding details, was a well-kept secret, a sort of alchemical process of transforming base elements into a substance simulating precious gems. Even now, though we can approximate the substance, we cannot manipulate it so as to produce consummate works of art such as those manufactured by highly skilled ancient Egyptian artisans for more than 5,000 years.

Gifts of the Nile, the first exhibition exclusively devoted to this lost art, includes approximately 200 works--dating from 5500 BC to AD 200--from 30 lenders, both museums and private collections, in Europe and America. Quality was the sole selection criterion; only the best is represented.

While faience could be made in a variety of shades, the most predominant were blue and greencolors of symbolic value for the ancient Egyptians. For example, there were many words for green in ancient Egyptian. One, renpy, also meant "young, vigorous"; another, wadj, meant "fresh, healthy, and happy." Faience, then, acquired or was purposely designed to evoke the very qualities that the Egyptians most prized both in funerary articles and in everyday life.

Faience was a sumptuous material and thus suitable for kings. Perhaps its earliest use on a large scale was for interior decoration. When King Djoser built as his eternal resting place the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first monumental stone edifice built in Egypt or anywhere else, he lined the subterranean corridors with green faience tiles. A reconstructed panel of these tiles is featured in the first room of the exhibition, devoted to early uses of faience.

Later pharaohs followed Djoser's example. The palaces of Ramesses ii at Qantir and of Ramesses iii at Tell el-Yahudiya and Medinet Habu were brilliantly decorated with multi-
colored faience tiles depicting friezes of lotus blossoms, images of Egypt's vanquished enemies, and inlays of pharaoh's name to spectacular effect. Statues of the king were also made of faience, and it was a prized material for royal gifts. Objects such as these are displayed in the exhibition's second section.

The sections of the exhibition that follow are devoted to women's use of faience, faience in daily life, and funerary uses. There you will see deluxe perfume jars, fantastic tableware, colorful jewelry, amulets to protect the living and the dead, funerary statuettes (called shawabtys), and bead-net shrouds for mummies. The exhibition closes with a section dedicated to the technical aspects of faience, based on the latest research, to which our museum's conservation department has made a significant contribution (see the article by Patricia Griffin).

Credits

The exhibition is organized by the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, with major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Carl and Carolyn Haffenreffer, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding has been provided by the Joukowsky Family Foundation, Textron Inc., and anonymous donors. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The Cleveland showing is made possible by Ameritech. Promotional support is provided by The Plain Dealer and WMJI Majic 105.7.