Alabaster Jar with Twisted-Rope Decoration

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Alabaster Jar with Twisted-Rope Decoration

Place of OriginEgypt

Date1st or 2nd Dynasty, about 3200-2780 BCE

Dimensions9 1/2 × 4 3/8 × 4 3/8 × 3 7/8 × 4 3/8 in. (24.1 × 11.1 × 11.1 × 9.8 × 11.1 cm)

MediumTravertine (Egyptian alabaster)

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LineGift of Caroline Ransom Williams

Object number

1943.52

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02, Classic

DescriptionA tall, cylindrical jar made of travertine with a smooth, polished surface. The rim is adorned with a low-relief band that imitates twisted rope, likely representing cordage used to fasten a lid. The stone exhibits natural veining and color variations.

Label TextThis finely crafted travertine (Egyptian alabaster) jar exemplifies the sophisticated stonework of Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period. The jar’s twisted-rope relief decoration below the rim was once a functional feature on earlier ceramic vessels but became a purely decorative motif by this period. Stone vessels like this were meticulously hollowed out using copper or flint drills, later refined with stone-tipped crank drills, then polished to a smooth finish using abrasives such as sand. The use of travertine, prized for its translucency and natural veining, indicates that this jar was a prestigious object, possibly for ritual or funerary purposes. This object was donated to TMA by Caroline Ransom Williams, a pioneering American Egyptologist, Toledo native, and the first woman in the United States to earn a PhD in Egyptology, whose scholarship and curatorial work helped shape the museum’s early collection of Egyptian antiquities.Published References

Luckner, Kurt T., "The Art of Egypt, Part 1," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 14, no. 1, Spring 1971; p. 7, repr. fig. 6.

Peck, William H., Sandra E. Knudsen and Paula Reich, Egypt in Toledo: The Ancient Egyptian Collection at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, 2011, p. 30, repr. (col.).

Exhibition History

Toledo Museum of Art, The Egypt Experience: Secrets of the Tomb, October 29, 2010-January 8, 2012.