Egyptian Faience

Scholars and excavators once applied the designation “faience” to a class of glazed material found in Egypt because it had a superficial resemblance to the glazed pottery made in the Italian region of Faenza. As is true with a number of early designations for Egyptian materials, objects, and types, faience has become a traditional term even though it is incorrect. It is better to differentiate it from the European pottery by referring to it as “Egyptian faience.” It is not ceramic, if the definition of ceramic is restricted to material made from clay. The word “ceramic,” after all, is derived from the Greek word keramos, which means “potter’s clay.” There is no clay in Egyptian faience except rather late in history, when some objects were made with an admixture of clay to the faience material.

Egyptian faience is a material composed of crushed or powdered quartzite (silica) with the addition of an alkali in the form of plant ash or natron, a naturally occurring soda (sodium sesquicarbonate) found in the deserts of Egypt, particularly in the Wadi Natrun, to the west of the Nile in the north. The ash or soda acts as a flux that makes it possible for the heated silica to fuse and become glassy by reducing the melting point of the silica. In addition to the two main constitutions, silica and alkali, a small amount of lime or other minerals, particularly copper compounds, were added to provide color. In experiments attempting to produce faience in modern times it has been estimated that faience fused at temperatures between 800 and 1,000 degrees centigrade, well within the limits possible with the ancient kilns.