Texts in Translation #16: Senebtifi’s Beaker from Abydos (Acc. No. 3964)

A guest post by Dr Nicky Nielsen, newly-appointed Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester. Senebtifi’s vessel is one of several objects which are used in the teaching of the University of Manchester Online Egyptology Certificate and Diploma courses. 

It is often the case in museums that apparently inconspicuous objects can turn out to contain very interesting bits of information. This is the case with this small (height: 12.4cm) flat-based beaker. It can be dated by its shape to between the late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period (c. 1700 BC) and is manufactured from a relatively fine Nile silt clay. Small amounts of chopped straw (so-called ‘chaff’) was added to the clay to make the vessel more stable during firing. Holes were punched along its lip prior to firing and allowed the vessel to be hung with strings. Alternatively, they could have been used to tie down and secure a lid. An inked inscription runs in two lines along the vessel’s body:

(1) An offering which the king gives to Osiris, Lord of Abydos, so that he may give bread and beer (2) oxen and fowl, alabaster and [linen], for the ka of the Officer of the Ruler’s Crew, Seneb[///]

The ink used to write this dedication has faded considerably and the last few syllables of the owner’s name are too faint to read. However, a clue to his identity can be found in the original archaeological context of the beaker. It was found by the Lancashire-born Egyptologist John Garstang in 1906 at the site of Abydos, home to the cult of Osiris for much of Pharaonic history. The beaker was found in Tomb 7 A’06 by Garstang along with several other inscribed vessels.

These vessels were in the form of model granaries, which were believed to magically transform into real granaries in the Afterlife, thus ensuring a rich supply of grain for the deceased owner. Three of these model granaries (Manchester Museum 3972, Garstang Museum of Archaeology E. 6846 and Bolton Museum Bol.A.10.20.10) were inscribed with a similar offering formula and all three list their owner as the Officer of the Ruler’s Crew, Senebtifi.

Transcription of acc. no. 3964 – N. Nielsen

Senebtifi’s title is somewhat mysterious. It was used primarily during the late Middle Kingdom and throughout the Second Intermediate Period. It may have been related to Egypt’s growing military and in particular to the riverine navy built by the Theban rulers of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period and deployed in battle against the Hyksos city of Avaris at the end of the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1550 BC).

The writing style of the inscription is also noteworthy. For the first part of the inscription, the so-called Offering Formula, the scribe has used a more formalised hieroglyphic writing, attempting to form the individual symbols properly. However, in the second part of the inscription, which lists Senebtifi’s name and title, the scribe has reverted to using hieratic, a cursive version of hieroglyphs more commonly used for writing administrative documents. This may suggest that the vessel was purchased (or more precisely, bartered) with the formulaic part of the inscription already written and that the new owner’s name was added in a hurry by a different scribe who was more comfortable writing in hieratic.

Another example of an off-the-shelf object!

Conserving & Interpreting ‘Soul Houses’

Caroline Berry, a conservation intern at Manchester studying Conservation Studies at Durham University, describes work on an important part of the collection.

‘Soul Houses’ on display in our Egyptian Worlds gallery

Manchester Museum’s Egyptian Worlds Gallery has a great collection of objects which offer an insight into the ordinary and extraordinary of everyday life in Ancient Egypt, and sometimes if you look at objects from a different angle even more information into their story can be found. This is the record of one such event.

As part of this collection the Museum has a number of pottery ‘Soul Houses’ given by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie in 1907, which form the largest collection to come from one site, being the cemetery site of Rifeh in Middle Egypt. As part of my internship I have been fortunate to conserve four of these objects.

No. 4260

 

To speak quickly of the background of these objects, Petrie coined the term ‘Soul Houses’ to describe these objects.  He believed the pieces were used to provide provisions for the afterlife. He was uncertain whether these objects were to house the ba, the spirit of mobility of the deceased when it entered the land of the living or as an offering for ka, the spirit of sustenance, to use in the afterlife, hence the umbrella term ‘Soul’ to capture both eventualities.

Petrie used consecutive letters A to N to type these objects. ‘A’ was used for the objects he considered to be the earliest form and N the most modern. He used terms from contemporary architecture to aid this development. An example of each type was sent to Manchester by Petrie to form the type collection that we have here today.

The models are hand-built, probably assembled by pressing and pinching together rolled out flat slabs of clay to manipulate the form. The size of the objects and the uneven nature of the base may suggest the objects were made on a floor and fired institute. The quality of the fabric suggests firing would have been no higher than 900°C. Although there is no contextual evidence for production, it is likely that this happened within a domestic setting rather than the cemetery.

An important aspect of conservation is to build an in-depth record of each object treated. While undertaking the photography, a mat impression, which appears to be layers of grass or reeds tied into bundles, was found on the base of 4360 (below).

Underside of no. 4360

After checking the bases of the other Soul Houses from Rifeh, it was found that 4360 was the only object with this impression. Deciding to check the bases of the other ceramic offering trays held in the collection, 6544 from Sanam, Sudan (below) was the only other ceramic model to be found with a mat impression, although this impression is similar to an imprint of basketwork, as the example of contemporary basketry in the picture below suggests. (below)

No. 6544

 

Underside of no. 6544

 

Basket from Kahun, late 12th Dynasty

 

Here at Manchester we’re are very excited by these findings and were hoping others may be able to share any such findings they have come across in Ancient Egyptian ceramics. We urge anyone with a soul house or offering tray, as long as the object is stable to do so, to check under the object and report back if they too have mat impression on their bases!

Tulips in Sudan: Kerma and the Kingdom of Kush

Acc. no. 8556 (Photo: Paul Cliff)

One of the most-eye catching and distinctive types of pottery in Manchester Museum’s collection are tulip-shaped beakers from the site of Kerma in Sudan, such as this example which is currently on display in the ‘Egyptian Worlds’ gallery (Acc. No. 8556).

The Kingdom of Kush was the first urban society in Sub-Saharan Africa and flourished from 2500 to around 1450 BC. The site of Kerma was the ancient capital of the Kushite kingdom and extensive excavations at Kerma have revealed residential and industrial areas, cemeteries, palaces and two huge mudbrick buildings known as deffufa which are uniquely associated with Nubian architecture and are thought to have had a religious function, perhaps as temples.

Tulip-beakers are a distinctive product of the Kushite kingdom and were produced in large numbers from 1750 to 1550 BC, during the period known as ‘Classic Kerma’. These beautiful vessels were made by hand using red-coloured clay which the potters found in abundance on the banks of the Nile. Before the vessel was fired, the surface was polished, or burnished, with a pebble, thus compacting the clay and making the surface very smooth with a metallic sheen.

The ‘Eastern Deffufa’ at Kerma (Photo: Anna Garnett)

Importantly, during firing the tulip-beakers were turned upside-down in the kiln which meant that the rim was fired in a reduced atmosphere (without oxygen) and so appears black, leaving the rest of the vessel red: we call these types of pots ‘black-topped red ware’. The delicate tulip-shape of this beaker highlights the technological skill of the Kushite potters, especially as the vessel is handmade rather than being made on a potter’s wheel. These beakers may have been used for drinking, and several have been found stacked inside each other in the tomb.

This particular beaker was excavated from Kerma in 1913 by the Harvard-Boston expedition led by George Andrew Reisner, an American Egyptologist and pioneer of early scientific archaeology. It subsequently made its way into the Manchester Museum collection in 1926 via the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum, and is a very visible illustration of the sophisticated craftsmanship of the Kushite potters.

A team of Geomorphologists and dating specialists, including Prof. Jamie Woodward from the University of Manchester, have recently revealed results from their investigations of ancient Sudanese river channels proving that the Kerma civilisation was able to flourish due to its proximity to the life-giving River Nile, which flooded every year and deposited fertile silts onto the land next to the river. The Kerma civilisation, which lasted for over a thousand years, finally died out in around 1500 BC when these floods were not quite high enough and a major Nile tributary dried up.

Check out more of Anna’s photos of Sudan at her blog.