The Bowl with Painting from the Russian Excavations in the Fayum Oasis (Egypt)

Abstract

The paper focuses on a painted bowl discovered during archaeological excavations of the Centre of Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (CES RAS) on the territory of Deir el-Banat in the Fayum oasis (Egypt). The site is located on the south-eastern edge of the oasis. The excavation on the site yields necropolis, “nunnery”, paleolithic sites. The bowl was found on the territory of the “Southern necropolis”. It has wide, horizontal, everted rim, and high-footed ring base. There are two holes on its base, and there is a rope which had been inserted through them. Inner surface is covered with white slip and painted with black-and-red ornament. There are two bands on the rim, the space between them is filled with black-and-red wavy lines and drop-shaped elements. The black motifs are painted over the red one. The palm tree, triangle with hatching inside, and rectangular constructions with hatching and circles inside. The parallels of the bowl have been discovered on several Egyptian sites. They are dated to the 1st quarter of the 6th c. AD — 8th c. AD. A bulk of them (as well as a bowl from Deir el-Banat) were manufactured in Aswan region pottery workshops, which is indicated by kaolin clays found in said region. The morphological features and clay of the bowl from Deir el-Banat allow to establish the date of its production — between the 3rd quarter of the 6th century and the 1st quarter of the 7th century AD. Possibly, it is a product of Aswan region pottery workshops, brought in the Fayum oasis. This date correlates to the date of the pottery from Deir el-Banat (the Ptolemaic period — the Abbasid dynasty). Two holes and the rope on its base suggest its decorative function.