A Decorated Jar of the Byzantine Period in the Museo Egizio, Turin (Suppl. 15626)

:ثحبلا  للحت  لاقملا ة  نولم ءانإ  هرشن متي مل  لبق نم ي رصعلا ىلإ دوع يطنزيبلا ،  كا هفشت  " يليرابايش وتسنرإ "  ماع يف ،طويسأ يف  حجرلأا ىلع ، ظوفحم وهو  يف ايًلاح ونيروتب يرصملا فحتملا ( لكشلا .) زيمملا يوثنلأا  يف ضورعملا فصنلا مسج نم يولعلا ءانلإا  رصعلا لامعأ ةعومجم يف ةردنلا ديدش فلؤملا نراقي .يطنزيبلا نم يولعلا ءزجلا ىلع دوجوملا لكشلا ءانلإا  ةدوجوملا ةهباشتملا لاكشلأاب  و تابسانم يف نأ ىلإ ةراشلإا ردجت .ةفلتخم تاقايس   ي لكشلا لا عم هباشتلا هجوأ زرب راخف نولملا  ب بأ ريد و  رفن حئاسلا يف كلذكو ،دابقنم يف تاعومجم  راخفلا يف ةدوجوملا  ةقطنم ايليك  انسإو ةراقسو  و ت سينتب ريدو  و ،)ةبيط برغ( تشبلا لكشب موك( ةنرامعلا لثم ىطسولا رصم ندم صاخ  عانعنلا نينومشلأاو )  و .ةجرس يداوو سيلوبونويطنا امبر ي نوك لكش ريغ ةيوثنلأا ةيصخشلا  لا ةيطنزيبلا رصم يف ةفورعملا ةعزنلا ىلع لًًاثم ينيد ىلع زاكترلًا للاخ نم رصعلا لامعأ ةعومجم  ريوصت يف اميس لً ،يتسنلهلا لاكشأ ةلوهسب اهيلع فرعتلا نكمي ناك يتلاو ،ديعسلا ظحلاو ءاخرلا ل لك نييحيسملا نم  .نيينثولاو  180 Incordino, Ilaria, “A Decorated Jar of the Byzantine Period in the Museo Egizio, Turin (Suppl. 15626)”, Rivista del Museo Egizio 3 (2019). DOI: 10.29353/rime.2019.2862

A Decorated Jar of the Byzantine Period in the Museo Egizio, Turin (Suppl. 15626)", Rivista del Museo Egizio 3 (2019). DOI: 10.29353/rime.2019DOI: 10.29353/rime. .2862 The article analyses a previously unpublished painted jar from the Byzantine Period discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli at Asyut, possibly in 1911, and presently kept at the Museo Egizio, Turin (S. 15626). The distinctive female figure represented on the upper half of the body of the vessel is rather rare in the Byzantine repertoire. The author compares it with similar figures found on different supports and in different contexts. Notably, she highlights parallels with painted pottery from the monastery of Abba Nefer the Hermit at Manqabad, as well as in pottery assemblages from Kellia, Saqqara, Esna, Tebtynis, Deir el Bachit (West Thebes), and especially towns in Middle Egypt such as Amarna (Kom el-Nana), El-Ashmunein, Antinoopolis and Wadi Sarga. The probably non-religious female figure may be an instance of the well-known tendency in Byzantine Egypt to draw on the Hellenistic repertoire, especially in depictions of figures of prosperity and good luck, which would have been easily recognizable by both Christians and pagans.

Ilaria Incordino
With a contribution by Federica Facchetti

Introduction
This paper presents an analysis of the painted deco- Unfortunately, both items suffer from a lack of relevant archaeological context. The Turin jar appears in the list of "dispersed" (=out-of-context) finds relative to the Italian mission's campaigns of 1911, 1912, and 1913. Interestingly, in all three of these years the diggers mainly worked on the slopes downhill from the ruins of the monastery of Deir el-Azzam (probably fifth century AD) and from a Coptic chapel, with 1 the 1912 excavation actually extending to the latter. 2 Therefore, to propose a date for Turin Suppl. 15626, some parallels with stratified pottery (or, more generally, pottery dated by stylistic and iconographic criteria) bearing similar decoration will be presented in the following pages, possibly to be traced to the same workshop in Middle Egypt.
2. Description of the Turin jar 2.1 Shape, fabric and colours (Federica Facchetti) The wheel-turned jar ( Fig. 1) is 48.4 cm high, the maximum diameter is 33.4 cm, the diameter of the mouth is 18.2 cm, and that of the foot is 13 cm. The fabric is a Nile silt with an abundance of straw of different sizes, sand, and limestone inclusions. The jar has a straight rim with a rectangular section, a distinct neck with concave sides graced with six applied cordons, and two small lugs at the base of the neck.
The body is ellipsoid in its upper part and coneshaped under the carination, and has a ring foot.
In the lower part of the body, below the carination, there are three rows of rope impressions. Also below the carination are three traces of firing defects.
The jar is covered with a red slip from rim to foot, and with a painted decoration from the rim to the carination. This decoration is in three colours: black, white and red, applied sequentially. The painter first drew the black lines bordering the registers, then those on the lugs and the neck (one continuous and two dotted). Then the painter applied the red and after that the white, except for the bust, where the white was spread before the red. The last colour to be applied was the black, and the last lines to be drawn were the two under the bust.

Decoration
As usual for this type, the painted decoration covers only the upper half of the outer surface. It includes four figurative "panels" between horizontal borders, framed by four intertwining arches with stylised foliage. Three "panels" show a leaf, a common motif on this type of storage jar, which was used for storing water or foodstuffs in monastic communities.
Similar decoration can be seen on the back of a tall jar from the monastery of Apa Jeremiah at Saqqara, presently in the Coptic Museum in Cairo (inv. no. 9065) and dated to the sixth century AD. 3 In the fourth panel there is a "bust" of a human figure, with an elaborate coiffure, big rounded eyes and a large nose whose outline is continuous with that of the eyebrows. The mouth is lightly sketched in red with black outlines. The figure wears a tunic. Some details are rendered quite accurately, namely, the black dots surrounding the head and neck; the hairs of the eyebrows, sketched in black; and a sort of diadem on the forehead, which shows a mesh pattern rendered with black lines on a white background.
The figure, which appears to be female, is enclosed in a semicircle bounded by creamy reddish arches outlined in black on a red ground.

Function and decoration
There is often a strong association between the function of pottery vessels and the images decorating them. In Late Antique Roman times (since the third century AD), for example, we have a clear un-  funerary and redemptive symbolism.
An interpretation could thus be tentatively proposed for the Manqabad cup as a ritual wine container, because of the Dionysiac "portrait" gracing its inner surface. As regards the Turin jar, some pictorial evidence from the monastery of Bawit could support a similar interpretation as a wine container (Fig. 6), even though there are important morphological differences between the amphora in the Bawit fresco and the Turin jar. The latter only has two small decorative lugs at the base of the neck, a ring foot and a peculiar anthropomorphic decoration on the upper part of the outer surface. Despite this, the Bawit painting is quite interesting, since it represents rituals performed with pottery items. In this depiction, the deacon prepares himself to receive the Eucharist.
The wine contained in the amphora will be transformed into Christ's blood and then consumed by the monks as part of the process of assimilating Christ. 7 Three vessels are directly involved in this ceremony, including what seems to be a large cup held in the deacon's left hand. Unfortunately, the decoration of the vessels is not clear enough to enable an accurate parallel with the items described above, except for the amphora, which however bears only vegetal and geometric motifs.

Female representations on Byzantine pottery
The anthropomorphic theme is in general rather neglected in the Christian Egyptian pottery repertoire of decoration, and as a rule very schematic when present. In many instances, no clear indicator is provided of the gender of the represented figure, which is generally referred in the literature to as a "hu-  The latter is also a very frequent theme on Byzantine textiles, mosaics and wall paintings, where it is still employed for its auspicious and protective power. 11 An example of this influence is the decoration of the headdress with rings, possibly deriving from a Byzantine diadem. This feature can be found, for instance, on a jar fragment from Tell Atrib dated to the late sixth or early seventh century AD (Fig. 7b), and on a painted ovoid jar, presently at the Louvre Museum, dated to the sixth-eighth century AD (E 10993, Fig. 7a).
Moreover, the tondo figures on pottery are remindful of some textile tabulae depicting bejewelled and richly dressed women -usually identified as divinities -as images associated with prosperity and abundance (e.g. Fig. 6, sixth-seventh century AD).
According to some scholars, female busts are "sys-tematically associated with representations of male and/or female musicians, seated or standing under arcades". 12 Some Late Roman papyri state that musicians were employed to perform during religious festivals, and the representation of Nilotic motifs with male and female dancers or musicians could also be cited as evidence in support of this hypothesis. 13 Even if some feminine images on Byzantine pottery are actually not associated with music or Nilotic scenes, the hypothesis that these images are depictions of the performance of religious rituals is interesting and worthy of a closer examination.

Stylistic and iconographic analysis
The Turin jar derives from Schiaparelli's archaeological expedition to Asyut, and probably more specifi-   A provenance from the atelier in Apa Jeremiah at Saqqara has been hypothesized for the Cairo jar, based mainly on the stylistic elements of the decoration and similarities with the so-called "Saqqara Jars", group C (ovoid jars with the decoration on the upper half of the vessel divided into registers by overlapping arches). A date between the sixth and seventh century AD has been therefore suggested. 16 An additional comparison could be made with a pottery sherd from Wadi Sarga (British Museum Further parallels can also be found in details of human representations on frescos, the influence of wall paintings on the pottery decoration during the Christian era in Egypt being well known. 19 Some interesting comparisons can be made, for example, with some painted figures above the Virgin from a decorated niche in Apa Jeremiah Saqqara (1725) in the north-west section of monastic cells related to the main church, dated by Quibell to the first half of the sixth century AD 20 (Fig. 12). The female heads The final goal was to be able to use images as tools for spiritual work in several ways. To quote Bolman again, "models of ascetic metamorphosis were angelic virtues, apostles, prophets and angels". 22 It is quite plausible that such figures would also be depicted on pottery and other kind of supports.

Conclusions
The above stylistic and iconographic analysis of the Turin jar decoration suggests a date in the sixth or seventh century AD. This hypothesis is mainly based on parallels with similar decorated items. The several features shared with a painted jar from the Cairo Coptic Museum (inv. no. 9074) of Type C "Saqqara jars" can be considered as the most persuasive evidence in this regard.  In the light of all the parallels pointed out in the present article, it therefore seems possible to suggest that the Turin ovoid jar with a female (?) representation could be included in the same chronological range as the Manqabad cup (sixth-seventh century AD).
In addition to this hypothetical dating, a similar provenance has to be stressed for both items analysed, namely, the Middle Egyptian region of Asyut.
This could explain the correspondence both in style and decoration noted so far. Moreover, during a recent survey of some Byzantine vessels kept in the Museo Egizio in Turin, the present writer found further parallels with the Manqabad assemblage. For instance, there is a fragmentary painted cup from Schiaparelli's excavation at el-Ashmunein (Suppl. 2106; Fig. 13) that is quite similar in shape and size (14.2 x 28 cm) to the Manqabad cup, although it has no anthropomorphic decoration but vegetal motifs.
Another example is a fragmentary cup (Suppl. 2112; Fig. 14), also from el-Ashmunein, with a depiction of a female bust just below the rim on the inside (8.3 x 0.6 cm).
Since the preliminary results of the study of the pottery assemblage from Manqabad have brought out Notes 1 The present writer, a member of the Italian-Egyptian mission begun in 2012 at the monastery of "Abba Nefer the Hermit" at Manqabad, Asyut (Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale", Università "La Sapienza" Rome, Supreme Council of Antiquities local Inspectorate and Restoration Sector), is currently in charge of the documentation and study of the pottery finds, which also include previously discovered ceramic items presently kept in the SCA storerooms of Shutby and el-Ashmunein.  Kahl,ibid.,p. 37, and the list of "dispersed" finds, ibid., pp. 303-08. Information and references courtesy of Federico Poole. See also section 6 below. 3 Bourriau, Umm el-Ga'ab, 1981, p. 93. The sherd was found on the surface of the Coptic site in the Animal Necropolis at Saqqara, which seems not to have been used after the mid-sixth century AD, according to the date range of imported pottery. Therefore, even if this type of large storage jar continued in use at least until the middle of the seventh century, it is not likely that the Saqqara specimens could have outlived the occupation phase of the settlement; they are therefore generally dated to the fifth-to-mid-sixth century AD. 10 Bourriau, Umm el-Ga'ab, 1981, p. 93. 11 Incordino, SAK 47, 2019. For the "Dyonisiac-portrait", see Duncan-Flowers et al., Art and Holy Powers, 1989, pp. 13-14. area (namely Antinoe and Amarna/Kom el-Nana).
Ongoing fieldwork at Manqabad is currently focused on the search for evidence to support the hypothesis of a local production on the site (kilns). This will hopefully be confirmed by the future excavation of the large heap of pottery south of the enclosure wall, 24 a location that could be considered suitable to host such structures.