THE ART OF MEROITIC POTTERY

Meroitic Pottery is widely known for being finely crafted, heavily detailed in its elaborately painted decorations, and made using advanced technology such as pottery kilns and wheels to create them. Notable for its geometric designs and floral patterns, Meroitic ceramics are most instantly recognizable for their depiction of fauna and popular animals such as the crocodile, ostrich, and frog, all found along the Nile. In addition, cobra designs and pottery depicting ankh symbols of life or particular deities were also discovered. The Empire of Kush used Meroitic pottery as bowls, oil lamps, water gourds, cups, vases, and often buried them as treasures in royal pyramids. Meroitic artists molded pottery from clay until it was dense, but fine. The walls of the ceramics were found to be so thin and hard that archaeologists came to describe them as “eggshell pottery.” Much of the classic ceramics of Meroë were products of Lower Nubia. The first ceramic depicted here is a ceramic jar dated between 240-300 A.D. which was discovered in a tomb in Ballana, an ancient cemetery in Lower Nubia. The second dates between 100 to 300 A.D.

For More Information Visit: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/art-and-industry/

Photocredit: https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum-exhibits/nubian-gallery and https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/548213