Faience perfume vase in the shape of a lotus bud

From Sesebi, Sudan
Late 18th Dynasty, around 1300 BC

An excellent example of cream coloured faience

This beautiful vase was found in a plundered part of the cemetery at Sesebi in Upper Nubia. Sesebi, founded in the time of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, 1352-1336 BC), was home to an Egyptian colony during the New Kingdom period of expansion to the south. Other major New Kingdom settlements were Sedeinga, Sai, Kawa and Kerma. Most of the occupation in Sesebi seems to date to around the time of Akhenaten's reign. Sesebi's larger neighbour Soleb was the administrative centre in Nubia in the later years of the Eighteenth Dynasty (about 1550-1295 BC).

This is an excellent example of the use of faience in a colour other than blue. Decoration has been added to the cream body in blue and black, in the form of two friezes of lotus petals at the base and neck, with lotus buds hanging down; the vase itself is in the shape of a lotus bud. To ancient Egyptians the lotus was symbolic of rebirth and new life.

F.D. Friedman (ed.), Gifts of the Nile: ancient Egy (London, Thames and Hudson, 1998)

R. Morkot, 'The excavations at Sesebi (Sudla) 1936-1938', Beiträge zur Sudanforschung, 3 (1988), pp. 159-64