Women could have made synthetic turquoise beads like these in home bread ovens, say researchers (Source: Australian Institute of Archaeology/Mark Eccleston)
Posted on 05/23/2010 8:51:25 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...using synchrotrons to analyse the synthetic turquoise that was popular during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten around 1300BC. Archaeologist Dr Mark Eccleston... says Egyptian 'faience', a fine-glazed quartz ceramic of distinct turquoise colour, was a common material used in items ranging from simple beads to religious artefacts. He says while it was known that larger factories were used to produce the faience, his research has shown less prestigious pieces could also have been produced in ovens in household courtyards... "Large state industries were effectively sub-contracting labour and the household would get something in return, for example more food." ...Eccleston says that because women did work in the home, he believes these cottage-type industries were undertaken by women, and possibly even children.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
Women could have made synthetic turquoise beads like these in home bread ovens, say researchers (Source: Australian Institute of Archaeology/Mark Eccleston)
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"Eccleston says faience remains "an enigmatic" material to archaeologists as little is known about how and by whom it was made and exactly what materials it was created from." |
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#F: Why Djoser's blue Egyptian faience tiles are not blue?30,000 blue faience tiles were found in Djoser's funerary complex at Saqqarah (3. dynasty). It is generally assumed that the tiles underwent a self-glazing process during firing in the range of 800- 850°C (C. Kieffer and A. Allibert, 1971) or by dipping in a liquid glaze (S. Schiegel, 1988). SEM microanalysis shows the presence of phosphorus in the glaze that suggests the use of the blue mineral turquoise (mafkat), an aluminium-copper phosphate, intensively extracted by pharaoh Djoser in the Sinai mines. Our aim was to replicate the self-glazing process with a soluble silicate binder involving a synthetic turquoise (mafkat) mixture made of pure aluminium phosphate hydrate and copper phosphate hydrate. We were astonished to get a turquoise blue-self-glazed ceramic, stable and identical to Egyptian faience, at a temperature as low as 250°C. Post treatment at 350°C changes the blue colour into grey-black (chemical transformation of blue copper phosphate into black tenorite CuO) that remains stable up to 800°C, where it turns back to blue. Did Djoser's ceramists use this low temperature process? Apparently yes, if we look at the colours of the tiles. It is striking to notice that in contrary to their labelling, numerous Djoser's tiles are not blue but grey, black, blue-green and even brown, colours that we have replicated at self-glazing temperatures in the range of 250-350°C.
Manufacturing Djoser's faience tiles at temperatures as low as 250°C?
Joseph Davidovits and Ralph Davidovits
IXth Egyptology Congress, Grenoble, 2004
Sorry, Amun, not until I get the faience out of the oven . . .
:’)
Sekhmet, along with her husband the creator-god Ptah and their son Nerfertum, was part of the powerful trio of deities that protected Ancient Memphis. She was a sun goddess, embodying the scorching, burning, destructive heat of the sun. Fierce goddess of war, the destroyer of the enemies of Ra and Osiris, she was represented as having the head of a lioness and the body of a female human. Like the sun, her temper was uncontrollable. In the legend of Ra and Hathor, Sekhmet's anger became so great, she would have destroyed all of mankind if Ra had not taken pity on us and made her drunk.
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