Two weeks ago the potter I am working with (Alicja) began to make the cobra figurines. She had made some test ones, and I checked them out for accuracy. We had an interesting conversation about the usefulness of this project.
Background: She is making 40 or so replicas of clay cobras of the type I have been working on (you can see a fine example in the British Museum). She will then fire them, and then engineers at Swansea Uni will break them. The goal is to see if we can tell the difference in fracture patterns from those that have been accidentally broken from those 'ritually' broken. No, she is not using clay from Egypt (though I will see if I can pick up some red ochre for her to make slip). Nor is she recreating the precise kilns.
It is not an exact scientific experiment, so what is the point? Well, I have already learnt much about how they were likely made—lots of little tips that as an Egyptologist I would not have been aware of. More on that later!
Background: She is making 40 or so replicas of clay cobras of the type I have been working on (you can see a fine example in the British Museum). She will then fire them, and then engineers at Swansea Uni will break them. The goal is to see if we can tell the difference in fracture patterns from those that have been accidentally broken from those 'ritually' broken. No, she is not using clay from Egypt (though I will see if I can pick up some red ochre for her to make slip). Nor is she recreating the precise kilns.
It is not an exact scientific experiment, so what is the point? Well, I have already learnt much about how they were likely made—lots of little tips that as an Egyptologist I would not have been aware of. More on that later!
