Faience and Glass
 Faience (more properly called Egyptian Faience) is a ‘non-clay’ ceramic made from quartz sand or from crushed quartz and covered in a soda-lime-silica glaze. It is a common find on archaeological sites in Egypt from the prehistoric period into Islamic times and my interest has focused on its production particularly from the 18th Dynasty into the Roman period.
Silica is also the main constituent of glass, and at Tell el-Amarna, the ancient city of Akhetaten, glass and faience manufacture seem to have been carried out in close proximity to one another, and possibly by the same individuals. Since the raw materials, namely soda, lime and silica are used in both products it is quite likely that the same craftsmen may have been involved in making both materials.
One of the main debates surrounding glass in Egypt during the New Kingdom has been the question of whether the glass was actually made in Egypt from its raw materials or simply worked from ingots of raw glass imported from elsewhere in the Near East. Amarna is a key site for the understanding of this question since it offers what I believe to be the earliest scientifically excavated glass production centre. When Flinders Petrie excavated at Amarna in 1891-2 he thought that his evidence supported glass making but this has since been questioned. My work, carried out on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Society suggests that he was correct.
Finds of cylindrical vessels which are believed to be crucibles for making glass ingots correspond in size with a find of blue glass ingots from the Uluburun shipwreck off the Turkish coast. Since the ingots are coloured with cobalt believed to have an Egyptian source it is likely that the ingots themselves were made in Egypt. This would suggest that Egypt, far from being dependent upon imported glass, was able to export glass – at least in certain colours – during the New Kingdom.
 My work at Memphis has involved the excavation of a Roman period faience kiln, also in an area which had been investigated by Petrie early in the 20th Century. This work is currently being completed for publication.
I was also fortunate enough to work on the Roman glass from Berenike on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. This project was directed by Willeke Wendrich and Stephen Sidebotham and was designed to examine all aspects of the ancient settlement. The glass found at the site was often of a very high quality and imported from a wide range of sources. Preliminary reports on this material have already appeared.
Relevant Publications – Books
2007 Nicholson, P.T.
| Brilliant Things for Akhenaten: the production of glass, vitreous materials and pottery at Amarna site O45.1. London: E.E.S. 393pp plus DVD. (ISBN 978-0-85698-178-4) |
1993 Nicholson, P.T.
Egyptian Faience and Glass. Shire, Aylesbury. 80pp
(ISBN 0 7478 0195 9) |
Relevant Publications: Book chapters (including conference proceedings)
2008 Nicholson P.T
| Glass and faience production sites in New Kingdom Egypt: a review of the evidence. In C.M. Jackson (ed.). Proceedings of the Aegean Seminar, Sheffield 2005.Oxford: Oxbow, 1-13. |
2006 Nicholson, P.T.
| Petrie and the production of vitreous materials. In B. Mathieu, D. Meeks and M. Wissa (Eds.) L’apport de l’Égypte à l’histoire des techniques. Cairo: I.F.A.O. 207-216 |
2004 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass. In B.M. Fagan (ed) The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World. London: Thames and Hudson, 49-52. |
2004 Nicholson, P.T.
| Did the Egyptians invent glass? In B. Manley (ed.) The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames and Hudson, 259-261. |
2003 Nicholson, P.T. and Price, J.
| Glass from the port of Berenike, Red Sea Coast, Egypt. In D. Foy and M-D. Nenna (Eds.) Échanges et commerce du verre dans le monde antique. Montagnac: Editions Monique Mergoil, 389-394. |
2003 Nicholson, P.T.
| New excavations at a Ptolemaic-Roman faience factory at Memphis, Egypt. . In Annales du 15e Congrès de l’ Association pour l’Histoire du Verre. New York-Corning: AIHV, 49-52. |
2002 Nicholson, P.T.
| Hellenistic/Roman faience production at Memphis, Egypt. In G. Kordas (ed.). Hyalos, Vitrum, Glass. Athens: Glasnet, 141-145. |
2002 Nicholson, P.T.
| Vitreous technology: evidence for faience production at Kom Helul, Memphis (Egypt). In M. Aldhouse-Green and P. Webster (eds.) Artefacts and Archaeology. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 90-101. |
2002 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass production at Amarna: ancient technology replicated. In W.Z. Wendrich and G. van der Kooij (Eds.) Moving Matters: Ethnoarchaeology in the Near East. Leiden: CNWS 103-106. |
2001 Nicholson, P.T.
| Faience. In D.B. Redford (Ed.) The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt I. Oxford: OUP 491-496. |
2001 Shortland, A., Nicholson, P.T. and Jackson, C.M.
| Glass and faience at Amarna: different methods of supply for production, and subsequent distribution. In A.J. Shortland (Ed.) The Social Context of Technological Change: Egypt and the Near East 1650-1550 B.C.. Oxford: Oxbow, 147-160. |
2000 Nicholson, P.T.
| Roman glass from Berenike (Egypt): Some new work. In Annales du 14e Congrès de l’ Association pour l’Histoire du Verre. Lochem: AIHV, 151-55. |
2000 Nicholson, P.T. (and Henderson, J.)
Glass [Technology]. In P.T. Nicholson and I.M.E. Shaw (Eds.) Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: CUP, 195-205. |
2000 Nicholson, P.T. with Peltenburg, E.J.
| Faience. In P.T. Nicholson and I.M.E. Shaw (Eds.) Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology. Cambridge: CUP, 177-194. |
2000 Nicholson, P.T.
| Egyptian Faience. In Archaeological Method and Theory: An Encyclopedia, edited by L. Ellis. New York: Garland Publishing, 206-7. |
2000 Nicholson, P.T. and Jackson, C.M.
| Glass. In Archaeological Method and Theory: An Encyclopedia, edited by L. Ellis. New York: Garland Publishing, 258-62. |
1999 Nicholson, P.T. and Jackson, C.M.
| Tell el-Amarna and the glassmakers’ workshop of the second millennium B.C. In M.D. Nenna (ed.) La Route du Verre. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, 11-20. |
1999 Nicholson, P.T.
| Faience technology and production. In Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, edited by K. Bard. London: Routledge, 297-298. |
1999 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass. In Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, edited by K. Bard. London: Routledge, 357-358. |
1998 Nicholson, P.T. and Jackson, C.M
| Kind of blue: glass of the Amarna period replicated. In P. McCray (ed.) Prehistory and History of Glassmaking Technology. Cincinnati: American Ceramic Society, 105-120. |
1998 Tite, M.S., Shortland, A.J., Nicholson, P.T. and Jackson, C.M
| The use of copper and cobalt colorants in vitreous materials in ancient Egypt. In S. Colinart and M. Menu (eds.) La Couleur dans la Peinture et l’emaillage de l’Egypte Ancienne. Bari: Edipuglia, 111-120. |
1998 Nicholson, P.T.
| Materials and technology. In F.D. Friedman (ed.) Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience. London: Thames and Hudson, 50-64, plus short catalogue entries. |
1997 Nicholson, P.T.
| The place of glass manufacture in 18th Dynasty Egypt. In J. Phillips, L. Bell and B. Williams (eds.) Ancient Egypt, The Aegean and the Near East: Studies in Honour of Martha Rhoads Bell. Vol.II.San Antonio, Texas: van Siclen Books, 377-387. |
1997 Nicholson, P.T.
| Early glass and glazing in Egypt: new excavations at Tell el-Amarna. In A. Sinclair, E. Slater and J. Gowlett (eds.) Archaeological Sciences 1995. Oxford: Oxbow Monograph 54, 49-53. |
1996 Nicholson, P.T.
| New evidence for glass and glazing at Tell el-Amarna (Egypt). In AIHV Secretariat(eds.) Annales du 13e Congrès de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre.. AIHV, Lochem. , 11-19. |
1996 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass (Egyptian). In J. Turner (ed.) The Dictionary of Art, vol. 10. London: Macmillan, 54-59. |
Relevant Publications: Papers
2008 Nicholson, P.T.
| Egypt’s ancient glass: excavations and experiments at Tell el-Amarna. Current World Archaeology, 28, 30-38. |
2007 Nicholson, P.T. and Price, J.
| Glass fish vessel. In S.E. Sidebotham and W. Wendrich (eds.) Berenike 1999-2000. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute, 220-224. |
2006 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass vessels from the reign of Thutmose III and a hitherto unknown glass chalice. Journal of Glass Studies48, 11-21. |
2002 Nicholson, P.T.
| Kom Helul, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 87, 12-13 |
2002 Nicholson, P.T.
| A new furnace at Kom Helul, Memphis. Egyptian Archaeology, 20, 24-25. |
2001 Nicholson, P.T.
| Faience production at Kom Helul, Memphis. Egyptian Archaeology, 18, 15-17 |
2001 Nicholson, P.T.
| The Glass. In S. Sidebotham and W.Z. Wendrich, Berenike Reports 98. Leiden:CNWS, 203-209. |
1998 Jackson, C.M., Nicholson, P.T. and Gneisinger, W.
| Glassmaking at Tell el-Amarna: an integrated approach. Journal of Glass Studies40, 11-23. |
1997 Nicholson, P.T., Jackson, C.M. and Trott, K.M.
| The Ulu Burun glass ingots, cylindrical vessels and Egyptian glass. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology83, 143-153 |
1997 Nicholson, P.T.
| The Glass. In S. Sidebotham and W. Wendrich (eds.) Berenike’96. Leiden: CNWS, 279-288. |
1995 Nicholson, P.T.
| Amarna Expedition, 1994-95. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 81, 9-10. |
1995 Nicholson, P.T.
| Glass making/working at Amarna: some new work. Journal of Glass Studies 37, 11-19. |
1995 Nicholson, P.T.
| Recent excavations at an ancient Egyptian glassworks: Tell el-Amarna 1993. Glass Technology 36 (4), 125-128. |
1995 Nicholson, P.T.
| Industrial archaeology at Amarna: an 18th Dynasty industrial site. Egyptian Archaeology 7:14-16. |
1991 Nicholson, P.T.
| Some aspects of ancient Egyptian glass. Ancient Middle East Society Quarterly 2 (6):8-11. |
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