Event: Ancient Egyptian woodworking 09/02/13

Working with wood in Ancient Egypt: a practical demonstration

In conjunction with our ‘Collecting Trees’ project and as part of our ‘Discover Archaeology’ Big Saturday on February the 9^th, the Museum is delighted to host Dr. Geoffrey Killen, an expert on ancient Egyptian woodworking, who will demonstrate ancient craft techniques – LIVE! Watch Geoff use replica ancient Egyptian tools to make furniture, the Egyptian way. There will also be a chance to see Egyptian wooden items normally kept in storage.

 

 

 

Ancient Egyptian Woodworking

Saturday 9^th February

11:30am and 2:30pm

Manchester Museum

ENTRY FREE

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Curator’s Diary 26/5/12: Making ancient Egyptian faience

Faience kohl pot from Kahun. Middle Kingdom. Acc no. 164. © Paul Cliff

Yesterday, I joined a team from the Caer Alyn Archaeological Heritage Project (CAAHP) as they attempted to recreate the ancient Egyptian art of faience production. Faience is a glazed non-clay ceramic material, composed mainly of crushed quartz or sand, with small amounts of lime and either natron or plant ash. The characteristic blue colour of Egyptian faience comes from a copper compound added to this mixture. Once fired, a thick glaze forms on the surface.

At the Manchester Museum we have around 2500 objects made of Egyptian faience, including one of my favourites – a bright blue libation cup of Nesi-khonsu, from the Deir el-Bahri royal cache. The material was widely used for vessels, shabtis, jewellery and amulets throughout the pharaonic period. In creating our new Ancient Worlds galleries we want to explain how this very attractive material – called tjehenet or ‘dazzling’ by the ancient Egyptians – was made.

Alan with the kiln, ensuring airflow is at an optimum level

In January I met Alan Brown of Daresbury Laboratory, who told me about his work recreating ancient kilns and his interest in ancient Egypt. He planned to build a clay kiln in an attempt to replicate the firing conditions that produced faience in ancient Egypt. Alan kindly agreed to talk about his experiments on film, to appear in the ‘exploring objects’ space of the new galleries. All the proceedings were filmed by the Museum’s media technician Luke Lovelock, and clips of the experiment will appear in the new galleries, with longer videos online.

Filming the kiln in action

This exciting case of experimental archaeology took place in a field just outside Wrexham in North Wales. It was perhaps the best day of the year to undertake such work – beautiful weather, and sunshine that seemed almost Egyptian! We were very lucky to have the services of a skilled set of volunteers from the CAAHP who have worked with Alan on a number of recreations before – not least the impressive roundhouse, next to where we were filming.

Alan’s team had built a small clay kiln in the weeks leading up to the experiment. They began by fuelling the kiln with wood and straw – as, presumably, would have been done in ancient Egypt. Alan had promised that dried cow pats would also be used as fuel, but – fortunately, I thought – this touch, however authentic, wasn’t available. Alan had prepared a number of small faience samples, made with different mixtures, including clay, gum arabic, and natron – a compound commonly used in mummification and simulated with table salt and bicarbonate of soda.

Each of the samples were placed on top of pebbles inside a lidded, fired clay container – or saggar – to sit at the centre of the kiln. An electronic probe was placed beneath the saggar to measure what temperature was reached in this hottest part of the kiln. Once the fuel began burning, and with careful stoking and sustained bellowing of air inside, a temperature of around 900 degrees Celsius was reached remarkably quickly. Although this core temperate fluctuated, it remained at between 800 and 900 degrees for about one and a half hours – providing the conditions thought ideal for the compounds in the faience to produce a glaze.

Inside the kiln, once the lid had been removed from the saggar

Once the kiln had been allowed to cool off somewhat, around three hours after the firing process had begun, we gathered round for the lid of the saggar to be removed. There was a real sense of expectation to see if the experiment had been a success – had the faience mixture been dry enough? Had the temperature been right? Was there enough bellowing? The results were astonishing: most of Alan’s greyish samples had turned bright Egyptian blue. Although the material remained rather porous, and did not show the shiney glaze typical of pharaonic examples, the experiment was declared a success. Conditions not dissimilar to those used in ancient Egypt had produced a passable imitation of this popular material.

Success: the distinctive blue of Egyptian faience.

Alan and his colleagues hope to make the results of their experiments more widely available soon. You can find out more on their other projects here. Footage from the kiln can be seen when the new galleries open at the end of October.

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Curator’s Diary 22/3/12: Of sling shots and Coptic socks

Experimental archaeology seems to breed enthusiasm. And it is always rewarding to see this enthusiasm sparked between two people who have never met, but who discover a mutual interest an object in the collection. This was the case when, last week, David Colter and Regina Degiovanni met in the Museum.

Sling shot Acc. no. 103, with 'shots' which may or may not have been used with it.

A chance conversation with David in a pub had alerted me to his interest in a sling shot (Acc. No. 103) from Kahun currently on display in our temporary exhibition, ‘Unearthed’. A separate enquiry had come from Regina, a member of Merseyside and West Lancs Weaver Guild. She was interested in how both the sling and our famous Coptic sock (Acc. No. 983) – which she’d seen at our Gripping Yarns event- were crafted. Both, it turned out, had created their own replicas of the sling shot in an attempt to work out how it was made. They were delighted when, with the help of technician Mike, we opened the sling’s display case so that they could have a closer look at the object, and measure it accurately.

David explains to some visitors how the sling shot works.

At the pub, David had set forth a very reasonable hypothesis on the sling’s use. He believes that it was not merely a toy, as it has been interpreted in the past: it is in fact capable of delivering a lethal blow from as far away as 200 yards. He observed that it would have been suited to hunting birds, and wondered if it might have been used near a lake or marsh. Of course the sling was found by Flinders Petrie at the workmen’s town of Kahun, which is situated near the Faiyum lake: the perfect environment to go on a bird hunting expedition!

David demonstrates the slingshot

Regina’s interest in our Coptic sock resulted in her spending the best part of two days with the object, observing it closely and working out how it was stitched, knitted and/or woven. The pattern, we decided, would make an interesting gift for sale in the Museum shop.

Both David and Regina have kindly agreed for the results of this experimental archaeology to be included in our display of ‘imitation’ objects in the new Ancient Worlds galleries.

 

Regina with her very accurate replication of the pattern on our Coptic sock

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