. Ancient Egypt. Egyptology. illustrated b\' the numerous thin-walled plates and bowls produced in the late predynastic and archaic periods. Vessels were occasionalh' produced with nms or bases cut from a separate piece of stone and fitted exactly to the body of the vessel. While thev are occasionally found in settle- ments, the majoriU' of these vessels appear to have been made entirely for funerary purposes; as mam- as 40,000 were found in a single storeroom of the step p\Tamid at Saqqara. Not only were stone vases made specifically as grave goods, so were certain kinds of potter\' and flint
. Ancient Egypt. Egyptology. illustrated b\' the numerous thin-walled plates and bowls produced in the late predynastic and archaic periods. Vessels were occasionalh' produced with nms or bases cut from a separate piece of stone and fitted exactly to the body of the vessel. While thev are occasionally found in settle- ments, the majoriU' of these vessels appear to have been made entirely for funerary purposes; as mam- as 40,000 were found in a single storeroom of the step p\Tamid at Saqqara. Not only were stone vases made specifically as grave goods, so were certain kinds of potter\' and flint tools. The elaborate ritual surrounding burial in the predynastic period foreshadows the funerar\' customs of dynastic Egypt. Jewelr\', weapons, cosmetic palettes, animal and human figurines, and foodstuffs, as well as stone vessels and potter^', were often included in pred\nastic graves. The corpse was interred in a fetal position, most often on the left side and facing west; occasionalh' it was uTapped in a straw mat or a linen sheet and placed in an oval grave, which was then covered with a simple mound of earth and stones. Village cemeteries, as today, were usu- ally located on the desert edge of the valley (fig. 12). Though remarkably well preserved, the bodies so interred were not mummified, and their condition is due entireh' to the dr\'ness of the climate and the dessicating sands of the desert. Even after well over a centur}' of excavation, we still know far less about how the ancient Egyp- tians lived than how they were buried. A few small villages of various periods have been discovered, but they are far from representative of what a flood- plain town must have been like. Houses were built on a framework of posts against which mud plas-. Above) Buff ware jar with spiral design in redpigment. Xaqada 11. 'Height cm. #31472. 6. (Below) rough St raw-tempered ware vase with pointed base. Naqada III. Height # Please note that these images are extra
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Keywords: ., bookauthorfiel, bookpublisherchicagofieldmuseumofnaturalhistory
