Many prisoners were taken in this period and recruited into the Egyptian army. One force of 5,000 included 520 Sherdan, 1,500 Libyans and 880 Nubians. Ramesses II also successfully contended with attacks in the Delta Region from the king of the Lebu (Libyans) together with an early phase of the “Sea People” (the Meshwesh possibly from West Anatolia) who had settled in Libya. Surprisingly some of these people had pale skins, red hair and blue eyes. It was around this time that the Sea People started to have a dramatic effect on the Eastern Mediterranean.

9.34 New Kingdom Pottery

Dynasty 18, large wine jar, storage jar on
stand and wheel made squat storage jar
with open lotus decoration UC19192, 42210
and 8699 - Copyright of the Petrie Museum
of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

By the start of the New Kingdom, typical pottery food and drink containers included large vessels, small jars and bowls, jugs and mugs. Small jars from 3” high would be used for perfume or oil while large jars up to 3 or 4 feet in height held grain, cooking/eating oil, water, beer or wine.

There were also immense storage jars that the Greeks called “pithos”, typically 6 feet in diameter and made of coarse pottery that was used as a cellar to store meat and other foodstuffs. Wide shallow pottery bowls bore food such as eggs, bread, fruit (grapes, dates and figs), vegetables (lettuce, onions, turnips and beans), meat, fish and fowl.

Dynasty 18, wheel made red ware dish from
Thutmose III temple, Naqada UC15886 -
Copyright of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian
Archaeology, UCL

Small pottery jugs, bottles and probably small jars held beer, wine or water at the table to fill the mugs and small drinking bowls.

Dynasty 18, burnished, cream slipped
decorated jug and red slipped bottle
UC19170 and 19048 - Copyright of the
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL

Painted, rather than incised, pottery became more popular. Scenic decoration was applied after firing on the plain red body, or red slipped pots, in black, brown, red and blue, mainly for funerary use. In Upper Egypt black ware was popular in the early 18^thDynasty. From 2,000 BC some blue azurite pigment had been used after firing. In the New Kingdom, blue painted pottery based on cobalt, thus usable before firing, became fashionable and more common.

New Kingdom fragment of glass bowl showing
Mesopotamian influence UC22238 - Copyright
of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian
Archaeology, UCL

However at this time it was mainly used after firing. The blue cobalt pigment was often prepared as a glass frit. The indigenous cobalt may have come from alum deposits near the Kharga Oasis, or an alternative source of alum containing zinc and cobalt is found near the Dakhleh oasis. It is reported that very sophisticated cobalt spinel (cobalt aluminate) needed kiln temperatures to produce, but the cobalt might also have been present as a cobalt based pyroxene. The technology of glass production became practical at this time, but it was used for small, expensive, items, also often coloured blue, but the technology developed to increase the colour range.