DOI article:
Myśliwiec, Karol: Tell Atrib 1993
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43746#0045
purpose of stabilizing the vessels during the process of firing. This
technical feature, as well as cracks and deformations of the body,
prove that faience objects were also produced by the local potters
as were probably votive figurines and amulets found in fragmen-
tary condition in great quantities all over the excavated area.
Earlier excavations have shown these workshops to have
specialized in producing a great variety of clay vessels, terracotta
figurines, oil lamps and moulds for stamping bread. The local
sculptors worked not only in various kinds of Egyptian stone, as
mentioned above, but also in imported marble, which was used to
make the statues of Aphrodite found in 1985.
A set of miniature pots of clay, doubtless models of similar
large-size vessels occurring in our ceramic assemblage, was found
together with faience objects in a stratum dating to the second half
of the 3r^ century B.C. A mould of a grape-shaped conical juglet
from a neighbouring room adds to the series of technical devices
used by the early Ptolemaic potters in Athribis.
Found in context with the faience wasters was a fine golden
earring in the form of Eros attached to a capsular rosette adorned
with filigree filament. Occurring as it did in the mins of a
workshop, directly underneath a deep stratum of rubble, this
masterpiece of Ptolemaic jewelry suggests that other precious,
perhaps golden, objects could have already been plunderered from
the area in past centuries.
Surprising artistic originality is presented by the terracotta
figurines found together with this group of artifacts. There are
heads of individuals with naturalistic facial features depicting e.g.
a bearded Macedonian soldier, as well as caricatures and grotesque
types, perhaps characters of Greek comedy.
43
technical feature, as well as cracks and deformations of the body,
prove that faience objects were also produced by the local potters
as were probably votive figurines and amulets found in fragmen-
tary condition in great quantities all over the excavated area.
Earlier excavations have shown these workshops to have
specialized in producing a great variety of clay vessels, terracotta
figurines, oil lamps and moulds for stamping bread. The local
sculptors worked not only in various kinds of Egyptian stone, as
mentioned above, but also in imported marble, which was used to
make the statues of Aphrodite found in 1985.
A set of miniature pots of clay, doubtless models of similar
large-size vessels occurring in our ceramic assemblage, was found
together with faience objects in a stratum dating to the second half
of the 3r^ century B.C. A mould of a grape-shaped conical juglet
from a neighbouring room adds to the series of technical devices
used by the early Ptolemaic potters in Athribis.
Found in context with the faience wasters was a fine golden
earring in the form of Eros attached to a capsular rosette adorned
with filigree filament. Occurring as it did in the mins of a
workshop, directly underneath a deep stratum of rubble, this
masterpiece of Ptolemaic jewelry suggests that other precious,
perhaps golden, objects could have already been plunderered from
the area in past centuries.
Surprising artistic originality is presented by the terracotta
figurines found together with this group of artifacts. There are
heads of individuals with naturalistic facial features depicting e.g.
a bearded Macedonian soldier, as well as caricatures and grotesque
types, perhaps characters of Greek comedy.
43