Egyptian Faience and Glass

Nicholson traces Egyptian faience and glass through their materials, manufacturing methods and uses. The faience account moves from early glazed objects through the development of workshops and forms, and the glass account follows the emergence of glass production, its working techniques and changing vessel types. Archaeological evidence for production is set beside Egyptian objects found outside Egypt, among them faience exported to Cyprus.

How it is organised

Part I, on faience, has chapters on the material and its history from the Predynastic period to the Late Period and after. Part II, on glass, covers materials and technology, the earliest glass in Egypt, the New Kingdom, the Third Intermediate and Late periods, and the Graeco-Roman period. A chronology precedes the chapters, and a glossary, further reading, a list of museums and an index follow them (pp. 3–4, 72–80).

The evidence

Chemical analyses, examination of object surfaces and cross-sections, excavated workshop remains, manufacturing tools and finished objects make up the evidence. Glazing is read from variations in glaze thickness, drips and brush marks, and the workshop evidence includes moulds, furnaces, crucibles, fritting pans and glass-working fragments. Faience beads, figurines, tiles, vessels and inlays are illustrated, together with glass ingots, vessels, sculpture and decorative fragments (pp. 9–17, 28–34, 49–60).

The argument

Nicholson treats faience, frit and glass as related silica-based materials with distinct compositions and manufacturing processes, and Nicholson argues that their production may have taken place in close proximity, perhaps in the same workshop complex. He points to evidence linking faience manufacture with glassmaking and metallurgy. For glass he separates making it from working imported or locally supplied glass, a distinction that bears on the evidence from Amarna (pp. 16–17, 30, 50–52).

Nicholson describes Predynastic faience production as technologically varied, with evidence suggesting several glazing methods. Forming techniques diversified in the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, and in the Middle Kingdom cementation glazing, core-formed vessels and animal figures became more common. New Kingdom workshops at Amarna and elsewhere show faience production and glass working on a large scale (pp. 18–39).

Nicholson places the first securely dated Egyptian glass in the New Kingdom, though earlier examples may be imports or remain disputed. Nicholson presents New Kingdom glassworking as having established production of core-formed vessels, moulded objects, cold-cut pieces and inlays, and he describes a decline after the Twentieth Dynasty. The Graeco-Roman chapter covers Alexandria, the growth of glass blowing in the Roman period, cameo and gold glass, and mosaic glass, whose earliest securely dated true examples date to the reign of Nectanebo II and for which no Egyptian workshops are known (pp. 45–70).