Egyptian Faience

Egyptian faience comes in all sorts of shapes and colours. Although blue is the most common colour, faience was produced in a wide range of colours.

Ancient Egyptians called faience tjehnet. It can be translated as dazzling, sparkling or glossy. It is often regarded as a precursor to glass, not only because the upper layer has a similar shine, but primarily because it is made of the same three main materials: silica (around 80–95%), lime (1–6%) and alkali (0.5–3%).

Quartz pebbles or quartz-rich sand were crushed, ground and mixed with the other main materials. After adding water, the paste could be modelled by hand or pressed into a mould. The objects were then glazed and fired in kilns that could reach temperatures of around 1,000 degrees Celsius.

The Egyptians used various glazing techniques. The application technique was the most common. The three main ingredients were mixed with water and colouring materials until they formed a liquid paste. This paste was then either applied by painting it onto the object or by dipping the object into the paste before firing. For colouring, small amounts of metal oxides were added to the paste. For example, copper oxide or cobalt was used for blue, iron oxide for brown, lead antimonite for yellow and manganese for purple. Objects glazed using this technique can often be recognised by drip marks, small unglazed areas where they rested in the kiln, or a relatively thick glaze.

Other glazing techniques were efflorescence and cementation. Both techniques are self-glazing, meaning that there is no human interaction in the actual glazing process.

Efflorescence is a self-glazing technique in which the glaze materials are mixed with the core material. Water is then added. After the water evaporates, the alkali soluble salts from the glaze migrate to the surface, creating a thin layer of glaze after the object is fired in a kiln. This technique can be recognised by a thin and irregular glaze.

Cementation is another self-glazing technique in which the dried object is placed in a kiln and covered with a mixture of the glaze materials. After firing, a uniform glaze is formed on the outside of the object. The advantages of this technique are that many smaller objects can be glazed at the same time and the mixture can be reused.

Prolonged exposure to water or damp conditions can cause Egyptian faience objects to lose their colour and glaze, revealing the white core beneath.

The faience objects shown here were mostly made using the application technique. The beads were made using the cementation technique. The Isis suckling horus amulet lost all its glaze, revealing its white core.