Faking it: The new kingdom’s faux-stone funerary vessels

This article is from Ancient Egypt issue 144

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Today we routinely employ imitations of rocks and minerals in our costume jewellery, ceramic floor and wall tiles, and laminate countertops. The tradition of substituting less expensive materials of similar appearance for costlier ones extends back into antiquity. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with the practice, and by the beginning of the New Kingdom had developed it to the point where they were producing realistic-looking, polychrome faux stones. These included coloured faience and glass to replace the gemstones in jewellery and amulets, and painted patterns on ceramics, limestone, and wood to replace the ornamental stones used for funerary vessels. Other objects associated with tombs – false doors and statues carved from limestone, and coffins and storage chests made with wood – were also sometimes painted to look like stone (or a different kind of stone in the case of limestone). It was, however, with funerary vessels that the art of stone imitation reached its zenith in ancient Egypt.

Funerary vessels

From the late Predynastic Period onward, offerings in royal and elite private tombs included vessels carved from a large variety of ornamental stones. Some of these contained oil- and fat-based fragrances and emollients for the deceased to use in the afterlife, while others (the canopic jars) held the deceased’s internal organs. Stone funerary vessels were costly objects of limited availability and, consequently, they were sometimes imitated with painted ceramic and, less often, limestone vessels, as well as ‘dummy’ (or ‘pseudo’ or ‘false’) vessels carved from wood. The latter have the outward form of a vessel, but were not hollowed out. Whereas the otherwise functional faux-stone vessels presumably contained oils and ointments, the Egyptians believed the contents of the dummy vessels could be magically created by a spoken or written offering spell. The best-known examples of dummy wood vessels, which imitated both stone and glass, are the 27 found in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Yuya and Thuya (KV46) in the Valley of the Kings, now in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

Types of faux stone

The great majority of the New Kingdom’s faux-stone funerary vessels appear to imitate just five varieties of ornamental stone. These include, in order of decreasing frequency: travertine (calcite alabaster and Egyptian alabaster) from several quarries in Middle Egypt; red- and-white limestone breccia, from Middle Egyptian sources that have not been identified, but probably include a destroyed quarry at el-Issawiya Sharq; granodiorite (black or grey granite) from Aswan; serpentinite from the Wadi Umm Esh quarry and probably other sources in the Eastern Desert; and granite (pink or red), also from the Aswan quarry. Only three of these (travertine, limestone breccia, and serpentinite) were actually used for vessels during the New Kingdom, and, although the other two rock types (granite and granodiorite) were apparently not employed in this way, they were nevertheless popular ornamental stones at the time. A small portion of the faux-stone vessels represent other rock types that cannot be identified with certainty.

In what follows, the artistic depictions and petrological interpretations of the faux-stones are discussed and typical examples of their use on vessels are provided, together with photographs of 10 cm by 10 cm polished slabs of the rocks they imitate. The slabs were cut from samples collected from the ancient quarries. The concluding section considers why the ancient Egyptians chose to imitate only some of the many varieties of ornamental stone available to them during the New Kingdom.

• Travertine

Travertine is not only the most-often imitated rock, it was also the first one to receive this treatment (although in monochrome) beginning in the Early Dynastic Period (c.3100 BC). The painted polychrome versions of the New Kingdom typically have roughly parallel, wavy red and dark yellow lines on a white or pale-yellow background, and this is a fairly faithful depiction of the actual rock. With rare exceptions, the depictions of all the other imitated rocks are cruder and, consequently, are usually more suggestive than realistic. The early and frequent imitation of travertine is probably due to its importance as the preferred rock for canopic jars.

• Limestone breccia

This rock was mimicked by drawing red lines on a white background to outline either compact rounded or smaller irregular patches of white that represent the breccia’s white-to-pale-grey or pale-yellow pebbles and surrounding brownish-red to red matrix. The shapes of the white patches, however, do not conform to the angular pebbles seen in the actual rock. Limestone breccia is a close second to travertine in its frequency of imitation on funerary vessels.

• Granodiorite

Depictions of this rock take at least three forms: (1) compact black patches painted on a white background; (2) compact-to-elongated white patches painted on a black background; and (3) the same pattern used for limestone breccia but with black lines replacing red ones. The use of only black-and-white pigments in faux vessels needs some explanation, given that the Aswan granodiorite comes in several colour varieties. The rock’s distinctive large feldspar crystals can be white, pale-grey, pink, pale-green, or a combination of these colours, and are set in a dark-grey to nearly black matrix. Although the strictly black-and-white variety of granodiorite was employed as an ornamental stone, the other colour varieties were more frequently used. This might seem to suggest that black-and-white depictions were preferred for faux-stone funerary vessels, but it is more likely to be an act of expediency on the part of the artists: two colours are easier to produce than three or four, and are sufficient for observers to recognise which rock is being depicted.

It has been suggested that these faux-stone vessels are actually mimicking an entirely different rock: the black- and-white andesite/dolerite porphyry from the Eastern Desert. This was indeed popular for funerary vessels, but only from the late Predynastic Period into the early Old Kingdom, and so it would not have been an ornamental stone known to New Kingdom Egyptians. Diorite, however, is another black-and-white rock that was used on rare occasions for vessels and statuary during the New Kingdom. Small outcrops occur at a few places in the Aswan area, but no ancient quarry has yet been found. While it is possible that the rock represented on the faux-stone vessels is diorite, granodiorite is the better candidate, given its much greater popularity as an ornamental stone.

• Serpentinite

Faux-stone vessels with a mottling of darker green and lighter yellowish-green paint patches, and sometimes also with small dabs of red paint, are conventionally thought to represent a variety of serpentinite with a similar colouration. This rock typically has distinctive black veining and comes in brownish and pinkish varieties, but these are not represented in the painted versions. One could ask whether it is some other greenish ornamental stone that is being imitated, such as steatite or metagreywacke. Steatite (also called soapstone) is a dark-grey to mainly greenish-grey or greyish- to brownish-green, talc-rich rock that is compositionally gradational with serpentinite (which has more serpentine minerals than talc) and commonly occurs with it in the Eastern Desert. One steatite variety that was occasionally used for vessels in the New Kingdom closely resembles the faux-stone depictions. Even so, serpentinite was the more popular rock for vessels and is probably the only one represented, but it is possible that the variations among the greenish faux-stone vessels mean that both rock types were being imitated. The greyish-green variety of metagreywacke (the ancient stone bekhen) from the Eastern Desert’s Wadi Hammamat was one of the most widely used ornamental stones during the New Kingdom. However, it is unlikely that this is being depicted by the faux-stone vessels, because metagreywacke was never used for funerary vessels in the New Kingdom and, unlike serpentinite, it does not have a yellowish-green or mottled appearance.

• Granite

It is difficult to generalise about the depictions of granite on faux-stone vessels because so few examples are known. It seems the rock is usually represented by a mottling of black, white, and red paint patches, and this is a reasonable impressionistic likeness of the reddish variety of granite from Aswan. There are some faux-stone vessels that are painted mostly red, and these may be another stand-in for the granite (or perhaps the limestone breccia). It is also possible that they are imitations of the red variety of silicified sandstone (also called quartzite) from Gebel Ahmar near Cairo, which was another popular ornamental stone during the New Kingdom.

• Other stones

Several other varieties of ornamental stone were employed during the New Kingdom, but it is not clear to what extent any of these appear on the faux-stone vessels. Some ceramic vessels were painted either solid white – possibly to imitate limestone (perhaps the celebrated bright white Tura variety) – or solid black to represent basalt. Both rocks were used for funerary vessels during the New Kingdom, although rarely in the case of basalt, and often as a substrate for the painting of other rock types in the case of limestone. Another possibility is that these colours were chosen purely for their symbolic meaning.

There is a striking example of a faux-stone vessel that does not depict, at least in an obvious way, any of the ornamental stones used by the ancient Egyptians. This is a dummy wood vessel that appears to show a rock with elliptical, sometimes internally laminated, pebbles surrounded by a finer-grained matrix. It is one of a handful of extant vessels with a similar design. If the rock had an overall greenish aspect, it would be a highly faithful representation (down to the internal laminations in some pebbles) of the pebbly variety of metagraywacke. Although the metagreywacke from the known ancient quarries in Wadi Hammamat is always either greenish or dark-grey, in nearby areas the same rock formation can take on a brownish or pinkish cast that more closely resembles the faux stone. However, no ancient quarry is known for this latter colour variety and there are no examples of its use prior to the Roman Period. Another possibility is that the laminated ellipses represent agate pebbles in a silicified sandstone. This rock sometimes does contain pebbles and can have a colouration like that of the faux-stone vessel, but agate has not been reported from Egypt’s silicified sandstones, although it is not impossible that it is occasionally present. If the vessel is not imitating one of these pebbly rocks, then it must be an entirely fanciful creation.

Another unusual faux-stone vessel seems to belong to the same thematic group as the previous one: that is, a rock with pebbles set in a finer-grained matrix. The depiction of the pebbles is clear enough, but the rendering of the matrix is highly abstract and looks more biological than geological. It has been claimed that the stone being imitated on this vessel is the red-and-white limestone breccia, but this is hard to accept. Unless the pebbles are actually leaves in a thicket of branches (which is what it looks like) or the design is some kind of artistic whimsy, the most likely rock represented is a pebbly silicified sandstone, which was another of ancient Egypt’s ornamental stones.

Tomb scenes

Instead of, or in addition to, placing actual faux-stone vessels in a tomb, vessels were sometimes depicted in painted or carved relief scenes, as is seen in the Eighteenth Dynasty Tomb of Djehuty at Thebes. This shows several vessels as part of the funerary offerings but, notably, the two at the top represent limestone breccia (right) and granodiorite (left). These illustrated vessels and their contents, as with the dummy vessels, were supposed to become real in the afterlife of the deceased.

Choice of stones

With the exception of travertine, the reasoning behind the choice of specific rock types for imitation on funerary vessels is not obvious. Limestone breccia and serpentinite were commonly employed for such vessels during the New Kingdom, so their depictions are not surprising. This is not the case, however, for granite and granodiorite, although they were popular ornamental stones for other kinds of objects. It may be that each imitated rock type represented a particular substance, perhaps one of the so-called ‘seven sacred oils’ that are mentioned in numerous offering formulae. Alternatively, certain rocks may have been imitated simply because they were considered to be particularly attractive or prestigious materials.

There is, however, another explanation and this is not incompatible with the previous suggestions. Again, with the exception of travertine (which was probably valued because of its unusual translucency), it may be that colour symbolism was behind the choice of certain rocks for both the real- and faux-stone vessels. Colours had important connotations for the ancient Egyptians, especially in the funerary realm, and their meanings would have been communicated through the coloured stones. For example, because red was the colour of life-sustaining blood and the reborn sun at dawn, reddish rocks like limestone breccia and granite would have implied vitality and the regenerative properties of the solar cycle. Black was the colour of organic-rich, cultivable soil, and so blackish rocks like granodiorite and basalt would have connoted fertility and the underworld, where the sun was regenerated each night. Green was the colour of lush, thriving vegetation, and so greenish rocks such as serpentinite, steatite, and metagreywacke would have represented vigour and rebirth in the afterlife. And, finally, white was the colour of the bright, searing midday sun, and so a whitish stone such as limestone would have signified purity.

New Kingdom Egypt’s faux-stone funerary vessels are a colourful example of the time-honoured practice of imitating costly materials with cheaper ones. Why only some stones were imitated and not others is uncertain, but it is probably ultimately related to their colour symbolism.

James A Harrell is Emeritus Professor of Geology at the University of Toledo (USA), and is the author of Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones (Archaeopress, 2024). For the last 35 years, he has carried out fieldwork on ancient mines and quarries in Egypt and northern Sudan.

Further reading:
• B G Aston (1994) Ancient Egyptian Stone Vessels: Materials and Forms (Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 5, Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag).
• D Bordignon (2010) ‘Use and symbolism of stone in statuary: the imitation of painted stones’, in A Hudecz and M Petrik (eds) Commerce and Economy in Ancient Egypt (BAR International Series 2131, Oxford: Archaeopress), pp.21-26.
• J Harrell (2012) ‘Ornamental stones’, in W Wendrich (ed.) UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles).
• M Gander (2012) ‘Imitation of materials in ancient Egypt’, in K A Kóthay (ed.) Art and Society: ancient and modern contexts of Egyptian art (Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts), pp.265-271.

All images: the author, unless otherwise stated