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Alabaster, a soft rock often used for carvings, held significant importance in ancient Egypt. This article delves into the history, uses, and recent discoveries related to alabaster vases, shedding light on their role in royal rituals, religious practices, and everyday life.
Alabaster Perfume Vase of King Tutankhamun. Source: Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
The Essence of Alabaster
The Egyptian Alabaster is a dense, calcium carbonate stone that has been mined near Hatnub, Egypt since the pre-dynastic period. Alabaster is a soft rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder.
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.
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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.
There is some superstitious belief about the alabaster having healing properties. Excellent stone for bridging the gap between physical and spiritual lessons.
Alabaster is mined and then sold in blocks to alabaster workshops. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the statues are immersed in a bath of water and heated gradually-nearly to the boiling point-in an operation requiring great care, because if the temperature is not regulated carefully, the stone acquires a dead-white, chalky appearance.
The effect of heating appears to be a partial dehydration of the gypsum. 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.
Types of Alabaster
The types of Alabaster can be distinguished from one another by differences in their relative hardness. 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). The name may be derived further from ancient Egyptian a-labaste, which refers to vessels of the Egyptian goddess Bast.
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Two main types exist:
- Calcite alabaster: 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. 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: 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.
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. The ancients used the calcite type, while the modern Los Angeles cathedral employs gypsum alabaster.
Alabaster Vases in Royal and Religious Contexts
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.
Canopic jars made of alabaster. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Many of the artifacts from the time of Djoser, especially those related to the Heb-Sed festival, are important for understanding the rituals and cultural practices of the ancient Egyptian monarchy.
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Related: Double Cartouche Perfume Box of Tutankhamun. The tomb of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, contained a vast array of treasures, including several perfumed oil vases.
These vases were often made of alabaster or other precious materials and were intricately designed. They served as containers for the perfumed oils that were used for various purposes, such as religious rituals, personal adornment, and aromatherapy.
The Heb Sed Festival
This alabaster vase is connected with the Heb Sed festival, during which the king would repeat his coronation rituals by sitting on the thrones of Upper and Lower Egypt - seen here at the base of the handle. These thrones were within a pavilion on a stepped platform that symbolized the primeval mound of creation.
The rectangle below, in which a royal name would have been inscribed, is supported by the god Heh, the hieroglyph for millions. On the top of the handles a scarab beetle, signifying rebirth. All of this served to ensure the king´s perpetual resurrection and eternal rule.
Heb Sed festivals were jubilees celebrated after a ruler had held the throne for thirty years and then every three to four years after that. They primarily were held to rejuvenate the king’s strength and stamina while still sitting on the throne, celebrating the continued success of the king.
The Heb-Sed vase would likely have been used in association with this royal festival. Such vases typically depict the king’s divine status and may have inscriptions or imagery that celebrate the king’s longevity and strength, marking the completion of his first Heb-Sed festival.
SED Festival of Ancient Egypt!
Alabaster Perfume Vases
This perfume vase of King Tutankhamun is made of four pieces of alabaster cemented together. The idea conveyed by its symbolism is that the Nile will provide the king and queen, whose names are inscribed on the vase, with its contents.
The vulture with the so-called Atef crown on its head represents either goddess Mut or Nekhbet protecting the perfume. Flanking the vase are two deities with pendulous breasts and potbellies, both named Hapi, who personify the Nile and its fertility.
They are differentiated by the lily and papyrus clusters on their heads as Hapi of Upper Egypt and Hapi of Lower Egypt, representing the sema tawy symbol, unification of the kingdom.
The two divisions of the country and its Nile are further symbolized by the lily and papyrus stems tied to the neck of the vase and held by the two Hapis, each of whom also supports a column representing a single stem and flower of one of the same plants, surmounted by a cobra wearing the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.
In the openwork panels of the stand beneath the vase are figures of falcons with solar disks mounted on the hieroglyphic nbu sign for “gold”, protecting with their outspread wings the cartouches inscribed with the king’s names and flanked by scepters which symbolize “dominion”. The piece is embellished with gold and painted ivory.
Perfumes in Ancient Egypt
Perfumes held great significance in ancient Egypt and were widely used by both men and women. They were considered a luxury and were used for various purposes, including religious rituals, personal adornment, and as offerings to the gods.
Ancient Egyptians believed that perfumes had both practical and spiritual benefits. Perfumes in ancient Egypt were typically made from natural ingredients such as flowers, herbs, spices, and resins. Some commonly used ingredients included myrrh, frankincense, lotus, rose, lily, cinnamon, and cedarwood. These ingredients were often combined with oils, such as olive oil or almond oil, to create fragrant blends.
Perfumes were available in various forms, including solid cones, liquid oils, and balms. They were applied to the body using different methods, such as rubbing the oils onto the skin or wearing perfumed cones on the head, which would slowly melt and release fragrance throughout the day.
The art of perfumery was highly developed in ancient Egypt, and perfumers held a respected position in society. Perfumes were not only used for personal enjoyment but also as a means of social status and as offerings in religious ceremonies.
The ancient Egyptians believed that perfumes had the power to purify, protect, and please the gods, as well as enhance one’s beauty and well-being.
Today, replicas of these ancient Egyptian alabaster perfume containers can be found in museums and private collections, showcasing the exquisite craftsmanship and the importance of perfumes in ancient Egyptian society.
Recent Studies and Discoveries
Two decades ago, the first organic residue samples ever extracted by ARCHEM came from legacy objects excavated by Flinders Petrie at Sedment, Egypt, which are now in the Penn Museum. They included Cypriot Base Ring juglets and plain Egyptian alabaster (i.e., calcite) vessels.
After years of refining nondestructive sampling protocols and developing a transdisciplinary, tripartite approach to organic residue analysis fusing ethnography, science, and technology, the Yale Ancient Pharmacology Program continues to analyze the contents of Egyptian alabastra to elucidate their roles in ancient societies.
The most recent subject is an intriguing vase in the Yale Babylonian Collection inscribed in four ancient languages (Akkadian, Elamite, Persian, Egyptian) to Xerxes I (d. 465 BCE). The scholarly consensus has been that these alabastra were produced, and at least initially inscribed, in Egypt (Ritner 1996).
This study presents the clearest comprehensive evidence yet that opiates were a broader part of ancient Egyptian society and mark the first time that the contents of an inscribed Egyptian alabastron have been identified through scientific techniques.
The focus of this study is a distinctive quadrilingual-inscribed Egyptian alabastron (YPM BC 016756, ca. 22 cm × 10 cm) from the Yale Peabody Museum’s Babylonian Collection (Fig. 1a). In addition to the name of Xerxes I and his title of “Great King” a Demotic addendum notes the vessel’s capacity as “12 kpd-units” or ~1200 mL (Ritner 1996) (Fig. 1b).
The vessel has been a part of the museum’s holdings since its early history (Clay 1916) (Fig. 2), which can be traced to 1912 Paris and Ibrahim Elias Gejou (Scott 1986).
Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC) Egyptian alabastron. Source: Yale Babylonian Collection.
Spanning the Achaemenid reigns of at least Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, the proveniences of intact inscribed alabastra are generally unknown. What can be said is that intact inscribed specimens are rare, likely numbering less than ten in collections worldwide, and seemingly connected to elite contexts, such as particularly notable examples found at the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Posener 1936) and a Sarmatian burial mound in what is now Russia (Mayrhofer 1978).
Additionally, fragments of inscribed alabastra have been excavated at Susa, Persepolis, Uruk, and Sepphoris in similarly elite contexts (Westenholz and Stolper 2002).
There has been less consensus to the present day about their contents and role in ancient societies. Speculation has ranged widely from the common theory of cosmetics or perfumes (Schmitt 2001) to the imaginative hypothesis of hidden private messages between the king and his officials (Giron 1921).
The regnal years noted in hieroglyphs suggest that they were prized components of periodic, if not annual, gifts from Egypt to the palaces of Mesopotamia (Ritner 1996). They were then presumably doled out in turn to esteemed elites of the Achaemenid Empire, who valued them enough to take to the grave (Westenholz and Stolper 2002).
Utilizing organic residue analysis (ORA) to study the original contents of the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC) inscribed alabastron, the goals of this initial transdisciplinary study of the vessel are to contribute to the research into the nature of similar alabastra and other vessels made of Egyptian alabaster (i.e., calcite) as well as highlight the role that legacy artifacts from collections can play in ongoing studies.
Fundamental background questions include whether all, or even most, Egyptian alabaster vessels were indeed sourced from ancient Egypt and at what stage they were filled. Were these calcite vessels original packaging, closely attached to their organic contents from the start-serving also as the vessels from which contents were consumed by the end user-or customarily utilized at a later stage of the organic content’s journey from production to consumption, that is repackaging?
The ultimate goal of this project is to understand the object biography of the YBC alabastron and the life cycle of its organic contents from ecosystems to consumption.
In addition to the present ORA study, efforts are therefore being made to source the raw calcite from this particular container with nondestructive analytical techniques such as pXRF and pFTIR so that we, and others, can compare what we learn about this vessel with an assortment of similar alabastra both inscribed and unmarked housed at the YBC, Penn Museum (Clay 1910), and other collections across the world, as they have been uniformly well curated (Fig. 3a and 3b).
Ancient containers are often prioritized for study and curation due to a high degree of preservation and interesting visual features, yet their most important characteristic in antiquity, their contents, usually remains unknown or at least uncertain.
The unique transdisciplinary approach developed by the Yale Ancient Pharmacology Program (YAPP) and its forerunner, the ARCHEM Project, has demonstrated that many vessels hold traces of organic contents that are reflected in ancient pharmacopeic recipes as diverse as the early New Kingdom Papyrus Ebers and the early Byzantine Anicia Juliana Codex of Dioscorides’s De materia medica (Fig. 4), both a focus of study by YAPP’s ethnography team.
To inject a critical mass of organic residue data to long standing scholarly deliberations, YAPP is building on the work of ARCHEM to continue refining an easily reproducible and reiterable organic residue extraction technique, typically nondestructive, that is as effective in the field as it is in dedicated research labs to produce a library of samples numbering in the thousands.
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