From the Early Dynastic Period on, the Egyptians quarried a type of stone that is frequently referred to as alabaster. The name “alabaster” is thought to have derived from the Ancient Egyptian, ‘a-labaste‘, which refers to the vessels of the goddess, Bast. The English word "alabaster" was borrowed from Old French alabastre, in turn derived from Latin alabaster, and that from Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros) or ἀλάβαστος (alábastos).
However, it is in fact travertine (a type of limestone - calcium carbonate). The Egyptian Alabaster is a dense, calcium carbonate stone that has been mined near Hatnub, Egypt since the pre-dynastic period. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word alabaster.
In general, ancient alabaster is calcite in the wider Middle East, including Egypt and Mesopotamia, while it is gypsum in medieval Europe. Modern alabaster is most likely calcite but may be either.
There is some superstitious belief about the alabaster having healing properties: Excellent stone for bridging the gap between physical and spiritual lessons, stimulates meditation.
This article delves into the historical significance, diverse uses, and types of alabaster in ancient Egypt.
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The purest alabaster is a snow-white material of fine uniform grain, but it often is associated with an oxide of iron, which produces brown clouding and veining in the stone.
The ancients used the calcite type, while the modern Los Angeles cathedral employs gypsum alabaster. Typically only one type is sculpted in any particular cultural environment, but sometimes both have been worked to make similar pieces in the same place and time.
Real alabaster is a minimum of 3/8 inches thick and weighs at least twice as much as imitations.
The vein of alabaster has its own unique color and characteristic, the veins are translucent and dark and are completely random. If you see two pieces that have the same veining pattern in the same location, they are not genuine.
The handmade alabaster objects are almost always very thin, lighter in weight, waxy feeling with a matte finish (not shiny). Hand artisans can only achieve this thinness of the product, not machines.
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Its colors range from pure white to a rich creamy white and sometimes streaked with various hues of warm, rusty red. When the pieces are held to a light you can see the true natural beauty of the colors and patterns.
Though it is beautiful, the machine-made products lack the character and translucence of the hand made alabaster. Because the machines do not have the sensitivity of the artist, the machine-made products are thicker and heavier. The machines also provide a highly polished surface.
The color most often found in machine-made items is generally yellowish to butterscotch with white. Machine-made “Oriental Alabaster’ items are usually more uniform and one may not need to take as much care in the purchases of such items as when contemplating the purchase of handmade alabaster items. Checking to make sure that the object is structurally sound and without cracks is usually sufficient.
After purchasing alabaster, caring for the item itself is not difficult, though it must be handled with some care, as any such object.
For cleaning, it is best to simply use water and cloth, while avoiding the use of colored cleaning liquids as they can leave spots especially on the inside of some machine-made products because they are porous and not protected by wax. Water itself will work fine and will leave no residue. Obviously, a dishwasher should never be used to clean alabaster.
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Sources and Types of Alabaster
It is a whitish, slightly translucent stone (often with veins of another colour) which occurs mainly in Middle Egypt, particularly between Miniya and Asiut. The best known and most important source was the Hatnub quarries, near El-`Amarna. One Old Kingdom quarry is situated in the Wadi Gerrawi close to Helwan.
The types of Alabaster can be distinguished from one another by differences in their relative hardness. Both are easy to work and slightly soluble in water. The two types are readily distinguished by their different hardness: gypsum alabaster (Mohs hardness 1.5 to 2) is so soft that a fingernail scratches it, while calcite (Mohs hardness 3) cannot be scratched in this way but yields to a knife.
Mohs Hardness Scale
Calcite alabaster, harder than the gypsum variety, was used in ancient Egypt and the wider Middle East (except Assyrian palace reliefs), and also in modern times. It is found as either a stalagmitic deposit from the floor and walls of limestone caverns, or as a kind of travertine, similarly deposited in springs of calcareous water. This stone variety is the "alabaster" of the ancient Egyptians and Bible and is often termed Oriental alabaster, since the early examples came from the Far East.
The Greek name alabastrites is said to be derived from the town of Alabastron in Egypt, where the stone was quarried. The "Oriental" alabaster was highly esteemed for making small perfume bottles or ointment vases called alabastra; the vessel name has been suggested as a possible source of the mineral name.
Gypsum alabaster is softer than calcite alabaster. "Mosul marble" is a kind of gypsum alabaster found in the north of modern Iraq, which was used for the Assyrian palace reliefs of the 9th to 7th centuries BC; these are the largest type of alabaster sculptures to have been regularly made.
Gypsum alabaster is a common mineral, which occurs in England in the Keuper marls of the Midlands, especially at Chellaston in Derbyshire, at Fauld in Staffordshire, and near Newark in Nottinghamshire.
Black alabaster is a rare anhydrite form of the gypsum-based mineral.
Uses of Alabaster in Ancient Egypt
Because of its colour and durability, alabaster was regarded as a pure stone and used for chapels, pavements in temples, sarcophagi, altars and above all statues. In Egypt, craftsmen used alabaster for canopic jars and various other sacred and sepulchral objects. Some of the ancient artifacts made from the alabaster can be found in the Tutankhamun collection of the Egyptian museum, where we can find a variety of different items made from this material.
The ancient pharaohs used the alabaster for creating different items, including household items, ritual objects, and for different funerary purposes like the sarcophagus and the Canopic jars which were used to hold the organs of a deceased person which were taken out as a part of the mummification process.
In Ancient Egypt, alabaster jars were used as containers for ointment, perfume, and other cosmetic products, such as kohl. A very fine Ancient Egyptian alabaster jar, featuring an ovoid body. The vessel rests on a small flat base, that gently curves upwards towards a slightly flattened, short rim with a wide mouth, with no defined neck.
The macroscopic appearance of the objects seems reasonably similar to warrant the presentation as a group. As these objects were found in the stoneless Delta they had been brought to the site from the Nile valley either in the form of raw material or as finished products. Frequently such objects remain without known provenance. Partly this is the reason why they are in general rarely published and discussed, especially from settlements. Thus, almost no comparative corpus exists for the late Middle Kingdom.
During the whole Old Kingdom, the assemblages of model stone vessels represented social markers. In the Fourth and first half of the Fifth dynasty, they were made exclusively from travertine, and appeared in the tombs of members of the royal family and the highest officials. By the middle of the Fifth dynasty, the limestone sets took the place of earlier pottery model vessels, and found their way to the burial chambers of middle class officials. The Sixth dynasty brought another major change.
Burial equipment became wealthier, and there was no more need for “humble” model vessels made of stone. From the beginning of the Sixth dynasty, the model stone vessels were slowly substituted by copper pieces, and by the middle of the Sixth dynasty they almost disappear in favour of real vessels made of different materials.
Moulds are used in the shaping of figure vases and canopic heads. The use of a concave mould, into which the clay is pressed to form a vessel, is a more advanced process technically than the technique of shaping over a convex 'hump*. Shaping in a mould is based on the concept of a 'negative* of the intended shape and is often linked to the production of multiples, because the mould can be used any number of times with the result that the outside of the vessel is exactly like the other pieces made from the same mould.
Alabaster Craftsmanship and Weathering
Artisans start by selecting high-quality alabaster based on its color and texture, followed by careful design planning. After smoothing the surface with abrasives, they polish the piece for a beautiful finish. The process of crafting alabaster is as ancient as the stone itself. Artisans employ simple yet effective tools-hammers, chisels, and saws-to carve and shape the stone. Despite the primitive nature of these tools, the craftsmanship requires immense skill and patience.
Alabaster Carving Tools
Weathering and deterioration of the Egyptian alabaster were not studied enough as much as the other rocks (such as sandstone , limestone , granite and marble) , and the negative influences ring may occur hastily because of its chemical composition so the selected two examples of the Egyptian alabaster the most important examples of using it in building in Egypt and at same time is the most insecure , were studied through several visits to sites , description and Characterization of the Egyptian alabaster (Travertine) either in original sources (quarries) or in archaeological sites where samples were collected and taken to laboratory analyses and investigation.
Deterioration, Weathering and Damage such as : Constructional Defects (Cracks and Frailty and debility structure of some ornamental architectural) , Structural Defects(the colloform structure ,Vugs and cavities and granulation), Climatic (physical) weathering and Deterioration (Discoloration /deposit such as Bleaching , Gypsum formation , The soiling , Black or Dark Crust and Efflorescence and Sub florescence of Halite salt) , Loss of stone material such as Roughening , Pitting and Back weathering due to loss of scales) , Detachment such as granular disintegration , Crumbling , flaking to contour scaling , flaking to contour scaling and Fissures independent of stone structure) and Man-made faults (erroneous restoration).
Alabaster is a porous stone and can be dyed into any colour or shade, a technique used for centuries. For this the stone needs to be fully immersed in various pigment solutions and heated to a specific temperature. The technique can be used to disguise alabaster.
Egyptian Alabaster Art & Craft 4K
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