Faience bead mummy netting with Horus
child amulet UC73923 - Copyright of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

Faience beads were used in large quantities to make the net shawls that were used to wrap the dead before burial. Faience beads having various shapes and colours as well as bugles (tube shaped beads) were threaded during the manufacture of the shawl that was typically 15”x 3 to 4 ft. Faience amulets were also added at various points.

Faience tiles in King Djoser’s tomb,
Saqqara - source TourEgypt.net

Faience was even made into tiles for the chamber walls in tombs. Small tiles (2”x1”) were found in inlaid ornamental work in a pyramid at Sakkara, and blue and yellow ground tiles bearing a hieroglyphic history of the deeds of Ramesses III (1,200 BC) were found in a temple at Tell-el Yahoudeh. Although perhaps not as noteworthy as the gold objects, Tutankhamun’s tomb contained over a hundred faience items.

Although the technology for glazes that could be used on earthenware pottery, based on the faience principle, was potentially available in Egypt at around the same time as Mesopotamia (around 3,500 BC), evidence of its use is difficult to find, certainly compared with China’s rapid exploitation albeit much later, in the Shang Dynasty (1766-1046 BC)

9.25 Writing

Egyptians developed a simple pictorial script (hieroglyphics) around 3,200 BC, a little later than it appeared in Sumer. The word “hieroglyphic” is from the Greek word for “sacred carvings”. A study of the decoration found on Naqada period pottery shows that the representations of the plants, animals, religious dances, celestial bodies, houses and furniture develop gradually into stylisations. Eventually they become symbols that are the main component of hieroglyphic writing, which are the pictograms that predominated in early writing.

Phonograms were progressively added to form the complete hieroglyphic script. This would indicate that Egyptian hieroglyphics developed independently, but the concept might have come from the earlier Mesopotamian hieroglyphics that followed a similar initial development until the cuneiform script evolved. It is thought that at this time the learned men could not write complete sentences, so they produced a series of pictures for people to put their own meaning to - communicating ideas not precise meanings. However, this allowed visual communication of abstract concepts and names. An example of the latter would be to identify vessel contents or owners.

Hieroglyphics. Alphabet (source Elderadotravelegypt).
Faience ushabti, part of “book of the dead”;
Ramessid sherd regarding Osiris and Marl sherd.
 UC45434, 39685 and 45686 - Copyright of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

Hieratic alphabet. Sherds used for writing, two from
the Ramessid period and one from Dynasty 10,
UC39646, 39610 and 31909 - Copyright of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

About 3,000 BC Egyptian writing evolved into two forms, the hieroglyphics, based on pictures and a string of consonants (no vowels), suitable for carving on stone, so used on monuments and for display; and hieratic, a cursive or “joined up” form, used more generally for “writing” on papyrus and potsherds.