Sceptre

Sceptre

Place of origin:

Egypt (made)

Date:

ca. 1425 BC (made)

Materials and Techniques:

Turquoise-glazed crushed quartz composition known as faience. This same term is used for much later French tin-glazed earthenware but it is not at all the same material. The quartz composition is best-suited to modelling and moulding, and was invented in Egypt or Mesopotamia. It was probably a by-product of stone-working rather than potting. First used to make beads from about 4000 B.C., it was later used for amulets, figures of various sizes, vessels, tiles and other object types. Faience was glazed long before glaze was used on pottery - the latter only developed about 1600BC. Faience glaze is transparent and formed of alkali silicates (silica, soda, potash lime). It was first coloured only with copper oxide to form blues and greens emulating semi-precious stones such as turquoise, lapis lazuli and azurite but under the New Kingdom, other mineral oxides such as antimony, lead and cobalt were sometimes added to give other colours.

Credit Line:

Given by H.M. Kennard, Esq. (through Prof. Flinders Petrie, University College, London)

Museum number:

437-1895

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131268/sceptre/

Uas (ritual sceptre or staff) of turquoise-glazed composition or faience. Decoration consists of vertical bands, pear-shaped dots and diaper ornament on the arms, all in manganese, and a central vertical inscription in hieroglyphics which is the full titulary of Amenhotep II (Greek: Amenophis II, reigned 1427-1400 B.C.). Two cartouches also bear his name. The animal head probably represents the god Seth as the uas was found in a temple dedicated to him. The arms are broken off at the elbows but their acute angle suggests that they might originally have held a standard or have been raised in adoration. The stem terminates in vestigial legs.

Materials and Techniques

Turquoise-glazed crushed quartz composition known as faience. This same term is used for much later French tin-glazed earthenware but it is not at all the same material. The quartz composition is best-suited to modelling and moulding, and was invented in Egypt or Mesopotamia. It was probably a by-product of stone-working rather than potting. First used to make beads from about 4000 B.C., it was later used for amulets, figures of various sizes, vessels, tiles and other object types. Faience was glazed long before glaze was used on pottery - the latter only developed about 1600BC. Faience glaze is transparent and formed of alkali silicates (silica, soda, potash lime). It was first coloured only with copper oxide to form blues and greens emulating semi-precious stones such as turquoise, lapis lazuli and azurite but under the New Kingdom, other mineral oxides such as antimony, lead and cobalt were sometimes added to give other colours.

Marks and inscriptions

Aa.kheperu.ra, Amenhetep (Cartouche I). Neter.heq.uast (Cartouche II). Horus, Strong Bull, Possessor of Might, Heir of the Two Ladies i.e. the patron goddesses of the north and south, crowned in Thebes…King of the North and South, Ankheperura Son of the Sun, Amenhotep, Divine Ruler of Thebes, May he live like Ra for ever! (central vertical inscription, translated