In the present day, consumer society is almost completely dependent on metal cans, bottles of glass and plastic, specially designed cartons, and other packaging means such as Styrofoam or shrink-wrap. Foods that are shipped long distances need to be protected; fragile electronic parts need other kinds of special protection designed for them as well. The use of expert packaging has become so familiar that we tend to forget that there was a time when glass was a rarity, metal was too precious to waste on one-time use, and the whole field of plastics had not been invented and developed. In the modern world, packaging has become a specialized industry where the highly complex design and engineering of materials is intended to contain, protect, and display goods. Any thoughtful visit to a supermarket or a hardware store immediately reveals how much the purchaser is influenced by the wrapper or package.

The ancient Egyptians had a number of solutions to the problems of “packaging.” First and most important among these was the use of pottery – vessels or containers made of the local clays of the Nile valley (Fig. 56). Pottery was the most widely used material in almost every aspect of life, and this is well attested by the vast quantities of it, both whole and broken, found on any archaeological site. Although clay was by far the material most commonly used, the abundance and variety of native stone in Egypt made it also possible to fashion durable containers for more special uses. In addition to the two materials of pottery and stone, sacks for dry foodstuffs were made from woven fibers; animal skins and leather were used in a variety of ways as containers for liquids as well as for dry materials.