Attempting to re-organise and discuss a rich ensemble of pottery offering trays from the Museo Egizio, this article offers a new contribution to the study of this class of objects. The totality of published and unpublished trays from the Museo is taken into consideration and divided according to provenance. Three groups are identified: a considerable number of trays from Schiaparelli’s excavations in the Asyut necropolis; a group of trays from Gebelein; and a group of trays without provenance, and whose modalities of acquisition are uncertain. Each group is examined thoroughly and further subdivided based on stylistic and material characteristics. Common features and stylistic trends in trays from the same site and with the same provenance are identified. References to other trays from other museum collections or excavation reports help establish parallels and highlight common characteristics as well possible influences between neighbouring sites and regions. The attempt to reorganise the well-provenanced specimens within their archaeological context yields a better understanding of the distribution and popularity of this category of objects. Finally, the author proposes a plausible reassignment of a provenance to Museo Egizio specimens hitherto considered unprovenanced.
Over the last few years, latching onto a renewed interest among scholars in the study of pottery offering trays and soul houses, the author has conducted a study of the objects belonging to this class in Turin’s Museo Egizio. The museum holds a collection of 39 offering trays and 5 soul houses, the majority of which are currently displayed in the permanent galleries. This first publication presents a thorough study of all the offering trays. Soul houses will be addressed in a future paper.
The Museo Egizio’s collection of offering trays is particularly interesting and rich, since it includes a wide variety of well-preserved specimens and a significant
In the present paper, all of the 39 pottery offering trays from the collection of the Museo Egizio are briefly described, analysed, and discussed. A considerable number of other trays from museum collections and archaeological excavations are also considered, allowing for comparisons, the identification of parallels, and the highlighting of apparent similarities and trends within the same site, area, or even region.
While it would be difficult to properly summarise all the complex circumstances under which one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities in the world came into being, it should be kept in mind that a large part of the artefacts in the Museo Egizio (inventoried under the designation
There are also a number of objects which lost, for one reason or another, their original inventory numbers and were assigned new ones, prefixed “
The trays in the Museo Egizio can be divided into two groups according to provenance (Asyut, Gebelein) and a third group (unprovenanced) comprising all the remaining objects. The closest provenanced parallels will be used here as “anchors” to propose a likely geographical origin for the unprovenanced ones. Parallels will be searched for in the known corpus of trays from other museum collections and excavations.
In addition to the summary publication of the entire corpus of trays from the Museo Egizio, this article’s main contribution is to provide a methodology for the typological study of the material and the identification of parallels for the reconstruction of provenances.
The methodological standards followed for the analysis of the material first required a definition of the class of objects to which offering trays belong.
In the literature,
Diagram summarising the typological criteria used in the present study.
Within the distinguished sub-classes, in the present
Finally,
An unavoidable limit of the present research is that it does not adopt the Vienna System, considered today to be a standard method,
For the purpose of the investigation, a database was set up, a simplified version of which is visible in the several tables included in this article. For the Asyut material, shape, colour, spatial arrangement, quantity of offerings, as well as other features were taken into consideration. The same criteria were applied to the Gebelein corpus, except for spatial arrangement, since all the pieces share the same arrangement.
Offering trays have been discussed in a number of articles published in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, stimulated by the increasing quantity of material discovered in excavations all over Egypt.
As regards the state of research on the subject, the most updated and complete articles on offering trays were written by A. Kilian, who published the material from the German-Egyptian excavations in the necropolis of Asyut.
Offering trays have been interpreted as directly derived from stone offering tables, and the difference in materials as a direct consequence of the economic background of the owners, clay constituting a cheaper alternative to stone.
An attempt to propose a theory of the development of offering trays was first made by Niwinski, who defined the process of formal change whereby the shape of the base gradually shifted from square to round as
Offering trays are basins whose purpose and main function was the collection of liquid libations poured on them by the officiants of offering rituals.
Since the material is completely anepigraphic (except in one case)
Offering trays seem to disappear
It should be mentioned that the approach used in this work is experimental. Only further research on the subject will be able to shed more light on issues such as typological divisions and provenance. Moreover, some of the trays mentioned here have not been directly examined by the present author, but only seen in photographs. A future step would be to collect as much material as possible, in order to expand the range of specimens available for typological seriation, extending it to the whole corpus of known offering trays.
Performing a thorough data collection and establishing a potentially valid typology would be a pre-requisite for addressing other considerations, particularly socio-anthropological aspects, such as the rituals carried out on the trays, or semiotic aspects relating to the trays themselves and the modelled offerings applied onto them. Moreover, while the social environment behind the production of these objects has been treated only superficially, interesting insights could be gleaned from well-documented archaeological contexts. Questions regarding the producers, the social environment, the significance of the presence – or absence – of certain offerings, the relationship of the offering tray to the pictorial and literary corpus of the First Intermediate Period and the Middle Kingdom, the precise set of actions carried out during the rituals, are just some of the relevant questions that could be asked of the material.
The historical and artistic potential of this material has only been partially fulfilled. Its dissemination in the cultic sphere – measurable only after having quantified the number of trays found – could be analysed by relating it to other objects with the same functions (stone offering tables and soul houses), in an attempt to elucidate the stylistic and material relations underlying a social and regional context.
The fourteen offering trays recovered by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Asyut and now held in the Museo Egizio were collected during several archaeological campaigns spanning from 1906 to 1913. The archaeological contexts of discovery are not specified in the available records, except in one case (S. 7979, see below). It is known that S. 8141 was found in 1906, and S. 9179 in 1907 or 1908.
The trays recovered by Schiaparelli are comparable with the material excavated by Hogarth, Chassinat,
The Siutian offering trays were all modelled in Nile clay. The predominant shape is quadrangular (60.71 %), with a protruding spout. Rectangular shapes (12.5 %) are attested, as well as two U-shaped trays (3.57 %) and two oval ones (3.57 %). The rest are too fragmentary for the original shape to be recognised.
The sheer majority is painted over with a red-brown washing (66.07 %). The remaining trays are either whitewashed (16.07 %) or unpainted (four specimens, 7.14 %), or their surface is too poorly preserved to establish this.
A defining feature of many trays from Asyut is the presence of internal boundaries, small L-shaped inner edges that divide the surface.
Combining all these criteria, the present author has developed a typological distinction into four types and five variants (Fig. 2).
Diagram summarising the types and variants discerned in the corpus of offering trays from Asyut.
The first type,
Asyut Type I Variant A.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial Arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 7979
rectangular
red
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
4.5 x 19 x 26.5
whole
S. 14945
rectangular
white
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
5.5 x 13.5 x 22.5
whole
rectangular
red
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
6.8 x 22.7 x 27.6
whole
rectangular
red
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
5.5 x 18 x 23
whole
S. 7979 and S. 14945. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Some fragments recovered in Asyut by the German-Egyptian mission
Fragments of OT recovered in Asyut by the German-Egyptian mission, possibly Asyut Type I Variant A.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
OT1
rectangular
white
sunken parallel basins
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT14
rectangular
?
sunken basins
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT27
rectangular
white
sunken parallel basins
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT38
?
?
sunken parallel basins
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT44
rectangular
white
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
Asyut Type I Variant B.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 14943
U-shape
red
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
5 x 21.5 x 28
whole
U-shape
red
sunken parallel basins
single offering
no
5.5 x 21 x 27.2
whole
S. 14943. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
All the offering trays of Asyut Type I share common
Asyut Type II Variant A.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 10647
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
5.5 x 20 x 26
whole
S. 10648
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
4.5 x 23.5 x 31
whole
S. 14848 (?)
quadrangular
no
frontal divisions
ox head
many
5 x 26 x 31
whole
S. 14940
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
5.5 x 20 x 31
whole
S. 14941
quadrangular
no
frontal divisions
ox head
many
4 x 23 x 27.3
whole
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
few
4.5 x 21.4 x 28
whole
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
4.1 x 24 x 31.6
whole
sporadic find (Kamal,
quadrangular
?
frontal divisions
ox head
many
?
whole
S. 10647, S. 10648, S. 14848 (?), S. 14940, and S. 14941. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Asyut Type II Variant B.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 9179
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
raised platform
few
4.6 x 23 x 29.5
whole
S. 14944
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
raised platform
few
4 x 19.5 x 21
whole
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
raised platform
no
4.2 x 21 x 22.2
whole
S. 9179 and S. 14944. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The most direct parallels can be found in an offering tray recovered in Dendera by Petrie
Asyut Type II Variant C.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
P. 5537
quadrangular
no
frontal divisions
ox head
no
3.7 x 20.5 x 25.5
whole
S. 14946
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
none
many
5 x 23.5 x 28.5
whole
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
4.8 x 24 x 31.8
whole
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
ox head
many
4.5 x 22 x 29
fragmentary
P. 5537. Photo by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
S. 14946. Photo by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Fragments probably belonging to Asyut Type II are listed below,
Fragments of offering trays probably belonging to Asyut Type II.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 14949 (Fig. 9)
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
?
?
4.5 x 9 x 14
fragmentary
OT18
quadrangular
red
frontal divisions
?
?
4.3 x 10 x 12.1
fragmentary
OT22+OT29
quadrangular
red
?
ox head
?
?
fragmentary
OT24
quadrangular
?
frontal divisions
?
?
3.7 x 15.6 x 11.2
fragmentary
S. 14949. Photo by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Asyut Type III.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 8141
quadrangular
no
no internal divisions
ox head
many
3.8 x 19.5 x 21
whole
quadrangular
red
no internal divisions
ox head
many
4.5 x 21 x 26.6
whole
quadrangular
white
no internal divisions
ox head
many
8.2 x 28 x 31.4
almost whole
quadrangular
painted
no internal divisions
ox head
many
4.6 x 27 x 35.4
fragmentary
quadrangular
red
no internal divisions
ox head
many
3 x 11 x 21
fragmentary
quadrangular
red
no internal divisions
ox head
many
4.5 x 14.5 x 26
fragmentary
quadrangular
red
no internal divisions
ox head
many
6 x 22 x 29.5
fragmentary
S. 8141. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The only specimen from the Museo Egizio belonging to this category is
Asyut Type IV.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
OT3+OT16+ OT25+OT33+OT34
oval
red
no internal divisions
?
many
?
fragmentary
OT10+OT17+OT21
oval
red
no internal divisions
?
?
?
fragmentary
Other trays
Trays that are too fragmentary to fall in any of the proposed typological groupings.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Spatial arrangement
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
quadrangular
red
?
?
many
5.3 x 16 x 22
fragmentary
?
red
?
?
?
4.5 x 10.5 x 19.2
fragmentary
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
2.8 x 9.5 x 15.1
fragmentary
OT4+OT13+OT35
quadrangular
white
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT5+OT9
?
white
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT6
quadrangular
?
?
ox head
?
3.4 x 15 x 15.7
fragmentary
OT7+OT20
?
red
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT8
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
3.9 x 8.9 x 17.4
fragmentary
OT12+OT30+ OT31+OT32
quadrangular
?
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT15
?
red
?
?
?
6.7 x 8.8
fragmentary
OT19
?
red
?
?
?
3.1 x 6.7 x 10
fragmentary
OT23
?
white
?
?
?
4.4 x 15.5 x 8.6
fragmentary
OT36
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
10 x 9.5
fragmentary
OT56
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
4.1 x 12.5 x 9.8
fragmentary
OT58
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
4.4 x 3.4 x 3.3
fragmentary
OT26
quadrangular
white
?
?
many
?
fragmentary
OT41
quadrangular
red
?
?
?
?
fragmentary
OT40
?
?
frontal divisions
?
?
?
fragmentary
P. 6447, unclassified.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Year of acquisition
Modality of acquisition
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
P. 6447
quadrangular (?)
many
unknown
unspecified
5 x 14 x 27
fragmentary
P. 6447. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
This is a fragment, unpublished, of an offering tray or possibly a soul house (Fig. 11, Table 11). Even though it is just a fragment, it shows very complex features: the top of the external and internal rims is very flat, having been cut with a sharp tool when the clay was still unbaked. The rims and the external surface of the piece were white-washed, while the internal surface of the tray was painted with an orange-reddish coat. One of the sides of the tray shows a regular rectangular depression, above which two holes for the placing of wooden sticks were pierced. The internal rim bends 90 degrees, assuming an L shape. No parallel has yet been found, but the internal divisions are typical of the Asyut material.
The Museo Egizio holds a collection of fourteen offering trays with Gebelein as their recorded provenance. Two trays from the museum collection were added by the author, bringing the total to sixteen trays. Nine of these trays are preserved entirely, while two are fragmentary. The other seven are fragments of trays. Tooley includes in her list at least three offering trays from Gebelein in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, JE 54561, JE 66853, and Cairo 3/9/27/1,
The majority of the trays were recovered during excavations carried out by the Museo Egizio in Gebelein during the 1910-1914 campaigns.
S. 14259, photographed on site amongst other ceramic objects discovered during the 1912 campaign. Archivio Museo Egizio, B0173.
Two further offering trays, P. 5157 and P. 5536, were found in Gebelein, but somehow the information about their history and context was lost and they were assigned a provisional number upon arrival at the Museo Egizio. They undoubtedly come from Gebelein because they have direct parallels in the collection of objects from the same site.
In the corpus of trays from Gebelein, five different shapes can be distinguished (Fig. 13), with a predominance of the oval shape (37.5 %), followed by U-shaped trays (25 %), quadrangular ones (18.75 %), round ones (12.5 %), and one exceptional triangular specimen. The trays were either overpainted with a red wash (62.5 %) or bear no traces of paint. In the corpus, three different distinguishing characteristics were recognised, allowing to establish a typological division in three types and two variants. In two cases, the type corresponds to a specific shape: all the round trays have crossing channels (Type I); all the oval trays display T-shaped channels on their internal surface (Type III). The remaining trays, despite their heterogeneity of shapes, display circular depressions on the internal surface (Type II + Variants of Type II).
Diagram summarising the types and variants discerned among the Gebelein offering trays.
These are almost perfectly round offering trays (Table 12).
Gebelein Type I.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 16032
round
red
crossing channels
many
5.7 x 22.3
whole
S. 16035
round
red
crossing channels
many
6 x 21 x 24
almost whole
S. 16032 and S. 16035. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The two specimens from the Museo Egizio were coated with a bright red slip, generously applied to the internal surface of the trays (Fig. 14). Of the two,
Even though round trays also appear in Armant
The second type from Gebelein is characterised by the presence of two or more circular depressions on the surface of the tray, from which channels depart, connecting the depressions to the low frontal rim (Table 13).
Gebelein Type II.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 11966 (?)
U-shape
red
circular depressions
?
4.6 x 20 x 13
fragmentary
S. 14259
U-shape
red
circular depressions
no
6 x 23.5 x 31
whole
P. 5536
U-shape
red
circular depressions
no
8.5 x 26 x 38.5
whole
S. 11996 (?), S. 14259, and P. 5536. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Direct parallels for this group of objects can be found at Qubbet el-Hawa
Belonging to this type, but quadrangular in form, is
Gebelein Type II Variant A.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 11963
rectangular
red
circular depressions
many
5.5 x 21.5 x 28
whole
S. 11964
rectangular
red
circular depressions
one
5.5 x 22.5 x 28.5
whole
S. 11967
rectangular
no
circular depressions
many
4.8 x 25 x 31
fragmentary
S. 11963, S. 11964, and S. 11967. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The Museo Egizio holds in its collection a very small tray,
Gebelein Type II Variant B.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 11965
triangular
no
circular depressions
none
2.6 x 15.5 x 18
whole
S. 11965. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
This unpublished tray does not have any parallel in the known corpus. I have categorised it as
Finally, there is a fragment of a U-shaped offering, unpublished, whose only preserved superficial feature is the side of a channel (Fig. 18, Table 16). The object is too badly preserved to fall within any of the proposed categories.
Gebelein, unclassified fragment.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 14221
U-shape
no
?
?
3.9 x 9 x 29
fragmentary
S. 14221. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
Gebelein has yielded a great quantity of oval-shaped offering trays, with a continuous rim that encircles the upper surface of the piece. At the issue of the channelling, the rim has an opening a few millimetres in diameter to allow liquids to flow out of the tray. The channels divide the surface into two areas, one for the offerings, which always include the tied-down ox, and a second area characterised by T-shaped channels, modelled by finger impression on the still unfired clay. Seven offering trays in the Museo Egizio
Gebelein Type III.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
S. 16031 numero doppio
oval
no
T-shaped channels
many
6.3 x 25.5 x 30.5
whole
S. 16033
oval
red
T-shaped channels
many
5 x 21 x 24
whole
S. 16034
oval
red
T-shaped channels
many
4.6 x 22 x 26
whole
S. 16036
oval
red
T-shaped channels
many
5 x 21 x 22
fragmentary
S. 16037
oval
red
T-shaped channels
many
4.5 x 20.5 x 24
fragmentary
P. 5157
oval
no
T-shaped channels
many
4.8 x 28 x 31
almost whole
S. 16031 doppio, S. 16033, S. 16034, S. 16036, S. 16037, and P. 5157. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The same kind of offering tray was found in Armant,
As suggested by the choice of name for the present type, I believe that the similarity of the Gebelein trays to the Armant specimens, as well as the proximity of the two sites, suggest that this style was specific to the Gebelein-Armant area. This hypothesis helps to suggest a provenance for other trays, both in the Museo Egizio and in other European collections. Other specimens meeting the same description include: EA 21702 in the British Museum;
Gebelein Type III (provenance unknown, attributed to type).
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Multiple offerings
Year of acquisition
Modality of acquisition
Measurements cm (H x W x L)
State of preservation
S. 1189
round
red
T-shaped channels
many
1900-1901
purchased
3 x 28.5
fragmentary
S. 1190
round
no
T-shaped channels
many
1900-1901
purchased
4 x 21.5
almost whole
S. 1189 and S. 1190. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
These two objects
P. 6456, unclassified specimen, provenance unknown, possibly from Armant-Gebelein area.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive feature
Spatial Arrangement
Year of acquisition
Modality of acquisition
Measurements cm (h x w x l)
State of preservation
P. 6456
round
red
bound ox
dividing wall
post 1824
unspecified
5.5 x 40.5
fragmentary
P. 6456. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
The museum sources provide no information about the origin of this rather large tray, which is unpublished (Fig. 21, Table 19). It was recomposed from several fragments. It is of well-baked Nile silt and was coated with a brown-reddish slip. Although not perfectly preserved, it seems quite certain that the only represented offering was a tied-down bull, still entirely visible in the middle, at the back of the tray. This tray, too, was divided into two areas, one for the offerings and another possibly for the channels. The division was made by means of an internal wall. From the preserved fragment it is not clear if the piece was actually completely closed and pierced on the front to allow liquids to flow out, or if it was open. It is ascribable to the oval-tray type or possibly to that of U-shaped trays. The only parallel is an offering tray recovered in Armant by Mond and Myers. Excavated in tomb 1213, the tray from Armant also shows a single bull resting on the back surface of the plate. The dividing wall seems modelled similarly to the one in P. 6456. The latter could thus come from Armant, but this is not certain. It is also plausible that this tray comes from Gebelein, but the different look and treatment of the material compared to the other trays in the Turin collection appear to suggest otherwise. In sum, given the high concentration of such trays and the similarities of objects of this category in Armant and Gebelein, a possible provenance is Upper Egypt, Armant-Gebelein area.
P. 681, unclassified specimen, provenance unknown, possibly from Thebes.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive features
Year of acquisition
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
P. 681
U-shape
white
crossing channels + circular depressions
unknown
5.2x 21 x 32.5
whole
P. 681. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
P. 681 is unprovenanced and its year of accession to the collection unknown (Fig. 22, Table 20). Made of Nile clay, this U-shaped tray (unpublished) was coated with a brown slip which is visible on the internal and external surfaces of the piece. Two channels depart from two circular depressions on the back rim. Two perpendicular channels cross the longitudinal ones in the centre of the tray, resulting in a grid pattern.
Similarly-shaped offering trays have been mainly found in Upper Egypt. U-shaped trays are frequently attested in Dendera, Esna, and Western Thebes, with some specimens also occurring in Armant and Gebelein. The circular depressions in the centre or in
In specimens from Dendera, Gebelein and Western Thebes, the circular depressions are almost always two in number.
P. 730/1–4, unclassified specimens, presumably from Upper Egypt.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive features
Year of acquisition
Measurements cm (H x W x L)
State of preservation
P. 730/1
U-shape
red + white
U-shaped channels
?
6 x 20.5 x 30
whole
P. 730/2
U-shape
red
U-shaped channels
?
5.4 x 18 x 27
whole
P. 730/3
U-shape
brown
U-shaped channels
?
6.5 x 24.5 x 31
fragmentary
P. 730/4
U-shape
brown
U-shaped channels
?
4.5 x 27 x 21
two fragments
P. 730/1, P. 730/2, P. 730/3, P. 730/4. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
These four offering trays (Fig. 23, Table 21), all unpublished, have been grouped under the same provisional inventory number for good reason: from a material and formal point of view, they appear to be linked and share the same manufacturing techniques (they are all handmade) and a similar treatment of the internal and external surfaces (reddish-brown wash copiously applied on the surface, finger-traced U-shaped channels). Unfortunately, they do not share the same degree of preservation: while P. 730/1 and P. 730/2 are completely preserved, P. 730/3 is fragmentary and P. 730/4 is just a fragment, whose features are barely visible. All four objects are U-shaped trays with an internal channel, itself U-shaped, with its extremities towards the low frontal rim of the tray. Once again, this kind of decoration and the shape of the trays themselves point to an Upper Egyptian production. Direct parallels, especially the U-shaped channels, can be found among the trays recovered in the Theban necropolis
P. 5158, unclassified specimen, with parallels at Dendera and Thebes.
Inv. no.
Shape
Paint
Distinctive features
Spatial arrangement
Year of acquisition
Measurements cm (H x W x D)
State of preservation
P. 5158
U-shape
no
circular depressions
dividing wall
1910–1920
6.5 x 28.5 x 41.5
whole
P. 5158. Photos by Nicola dell’Aquila and Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio.
This tray (unpublished) became part of the collection of the Museo sometime between 1910 and 1920 (Fig. 24, Table 22). It is quite a large specimen, of very rough Nile clay, unsmoothed. It could be defined as a U-shaped tray, with a very large back featuring an extroverted rim. The back is separated from the front of the tray by a dividing wall, perpendicular to the direction of the channels, pierced in two points in correspondence with the two channels. The surface of the back shows two circular depressions, from which the channels depart. It seems quite clear that if libations were actually poured on the object, they would have been poured on the back of the tray; otherwise the pierced dividing wall would have been useless. P. 5158 is not very well preserved, its state probably being due to poor baking. Direct parallels for this object can be found in Dendera and Thebes.
This survey of the trays kept in the Museo Egizio and of their parallels yields a few important insights, which may eventually help to establish a common methodology for the study of this category of artefacts:
Trays from the same site tend to strongly resemble each other and site typologies can be established by grouping types according to common characteristics.
The typologies created for the trays from Asyut and Gebelein are quite explicative in this regard. I have divided the Siutian corpus into 4 types and 5 variants, in which the majority of the preserved and fragmentary trays discovered by all the missions that worked at the site can be grouped. I have done the same with the Gebelein corpus, with the sole difference that Type III includes trays from both Gebelein and Armant, highlighting evident common characteristics and pointing to a probable relationship between these two sites.
Besides giving an accurate count of known trays from the same sites, the survey has also shed light on the “popularity” of certain shapes and features, highlighting local trends and common representational aims. For example, Variant A of Type II in the Siutian corpus presents three basic characteristics: the quadrangular shape, the central ox head at the back of the tray, and the L-shaped walls on the front. All these characteristics appear at other sites but never combined, pointing to a peculiar regionalism of the site of Asyut. Not only do trays from the same site look alike and could be grouped in typologies according to shape, arrangement of the offerings, and other macro-characteristics, but it is possible to see that some features occur at other site outside of local boundaries, sometimes with such frequency that it is possible to argue for the existence of an actual
Not surprisingly, provenanced trays find their closest parallels not only among specimens from the same site, but also among trays found in geographically neighbouring sites, as in the cases of Armant-Gebelein, Gebelein-Thebes, and Thebes-Dendera.
In some cases, the resemblance between unprovenanced trays now kept in various museum collections and trays of known archaeological context and provenance is sometimes so striking that it suggests that the unprovenanced trays actually came from the site where the most parallel specimens are attested.
Through the survey, the already theorised and recognised northern predominance of square trays versus the occurrence of oval or round shapes in the South is confirmed, and further supported by a collection of specimens which have never been properly published or mentioned in the literature. Thanks to these evident similarities, it could be possible to assign a likely provenance to the unprovenanced pieces in the Turin museum’s collection, but only if the provenanced parallels are cross-correlated and if the number of parallels is high enough to make attributions plausible. Through this method, it is also possible to limit the range of likely provenances of some trays which had never been associated with their parallels beforehand. It is evident that this method could only stand to benefit from a broader coverage of all the known trays in collections and excavations, especially those which have no provenance. In this way, and through the mapping of provenanced specimens, some quantitative,