Palette – rhomboid, irregular PAL-0252
By Hendrickx, Stan
, Tomb H49.
1908–1909 : Egypt Exploration Fund excavation.New Haven, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, ANT 006794 & 006796.
Date : Naqada IC
Dated after the context and the objects from tomb H49 (Hendrickx 1989: II, 239).
Material : Greywacke
Preservation : Almost complete
Preservation information :
Broken in two parts with a small fragment missing.
Description
This rhomboid palette has angular projections at the ends of the shorter axis. One extremity is pointed and the other has an oblique end, resembling a handle.
Object use
The palette has been used, causing at least on one face hollowing in the central area.
Comments
The two fragments of the palette were discovered laying side by side in the grave (Ayrton & Loat 1911: 31). The Yale Peabody Museum online catalogue erroneously describes the large fragment ANT 006796 as a "diorite staff head" and attributes it to tomb H6 at Mahasna.
References
1911
Pre-dynastic cemetery at El Mahasna. Egypt Exploration Fund 31. London
, 17, 31, pl. V.21, pl. XVIII.3.1921
Corpus of prehistoric pottery and palettes. British School of Archaeology in Egypt & Egyptian Research Account 32, 23rd year, 1917. London
, pl. LVIII.90N.1989
De grafvelden der Naqada-cultuur in Zuid-Egypte, met bijzondere aandacht voor het Naqada III grafveld te Elkab. Interne chronologie en sociale differentiatie. PHD thesis, Leuven
, II, 239.2024
Rhomboid is not just a shape in predynastic times, in: Tristan, Yann; Villaeys, Julie; Ryan, Ellen M. (eds), Egypt at its Origins 7: proceedings of the seventh International Conference "Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt", Paris, 19th–23rd September 2022. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 323. Leuven
, 291–293, fig. 40.
