Intact wine jars with pre-firing potmarks from the Early Dynastic cemetery at Helwan, Egypt

Abstract

The current paper presents and discusses a group of 148 intact, marked wine jars excavated in Helwan, against the backdrop of related data culled from four selected, partly contemporary cemeteries, viz. those of Minshat Abu Omar, Kafr Hassan Dawood, Abu Roash and Tarkhan. Their study contributes not only to the theme of early dynastic potmarks per se, but also to contextual and social analyses and perhaps script development more in general. The various groupings of both legible and intelligible potmarks are slowly but certainly expanding, and the application of the term preformal hieroglyphs to several of these seems fitting.