Historical studies

They were apparently half sunk in the ground
when built. The draught-hole, or stoke-hole (view in
Memphis /, pi. xlix), was more than half-way up in i,
34 inches from the top in v, and about half-way up
in vi. It is 19 inches wide in i, 10 inches in v, 17
inches in vi, where it has been subsequently blocked
up so as to leave only a hole 7 inches wide and S high.
The walls of the kiln below the stoke-hole are deeply
burnt ; but they are not generally slagged below the
hole, and never down to the bottom ; above the stoke-
hole the slag is thick upon the sides.
How, then, were these kilns used, without any
trace of a perforated floor to support the pottery ?
In the modern Egyptian potter's kiln the large firing
chamber is fed from an opening in the lower part
and above that a brick floor, with many holes, supports
the pottery in the upper part of the kiln. The only
conclusion possible here seems to be that the saggars,
containing the pots to be glazed, were stacked in tall
piles in the kiln ; that then the fuel was thrown in
between the piles and burnt. The heat below the
stoke-hole was a slow combustion, not violent enough
to fuse the brickwoF'k ; while from the stoke-hole
upwards the air supply was strong enough to raise
the heat to slagging point. It may be that the lesser
heat below was intentionally arranged, by means of
putting the stoke-hole half-way up, because the saggars
in a full heat would not bear the weight of a whole
stack ten feet high. Thus the greatest heat was only
allowed to play on them where the weight of the pile
was less. Such seems to be the only explanation of
the results which we find here.
66. The fuel used was straw ; we
;
DETAILS OF POTTERY MANUFACTURE 3S
found much
carbonised straw in the masses of slag, which had run
down and covered it. No trace of sticks or of char-
coal was found.
The pottery to be glazed was stacked in saggars
(pi. xix, 239) of cylindrical form. Two were found
unused, 8 and 8i inches wide, 5t^ and 6 inches high.
The largest sizes among the fragments of used saggars
are 30 inches across and 8 high, another 19 inches
across. The height was almost the same, whatever
the diameter might be, because its limit was the
height of the internal stack of glazed dishes, which
would not yield to their own pressure at the fluxing
temperature. The saggar fragments are flushed over
with glaze and slag, which has run down, and through
the cracks, and hung as drops on the under side of
the flat bottoms. The pieces with parts of dishes
stuck in them are shewn in figs. 233-235.
The glazed pottery in the saggars was first sup-
ported on three-pointed stands, figs. 236-238. These
vary from 3|- to 9I inches across, and from 2| to 4
inches high. The dish which was first put inverted
on the stand in a saggar, had then three or four little
cones of pottery (fig. 212) stuck on to its base ring
with a dab of soft clay to bed them (figs. 213-216).
Upon the points of these cones was placed the next
dish, which then had similar cones set up on it.
This stacking was continued until the saggar was
filled, when another saggar was put upon the top,
ready to be charged. These cones are smaller in the
Ptolemaic time (the top row of 212), as found in the
waste high up on the Kom el Qalama {Mem. /, pi. i).
The larger ones (lower rows) are those from the Kom
Helul, of the ist cent. B.C.
The saggars having been stacked and filled, it was
needful to lute them to keep out the furnace gases.
Strips of clay were handed to the workman in the
kiln, who pressed them into the cracks between the
saggars, and threw away the waste ends of the strips,
which were then accidentally fired in the kiln (fig. 230).
The junctions of the saggars, as seen on some of the
fragments, were smoothly wiped round to close the
union. This use of the clay strips is shewn by the
impression of a junction of saggars upon one of the
pieces ; these scraps are '6 to '8 inch thick and 5
inches long.
With the potter's waste there were, from the
Ptolemaic site, several pointed pieces of hard wood
(fig. 250), and some of bone (251). These may have
been for modelling tools. Some moulds were also
found, such as the pottery moulds of the seated
Horus (240), and the ushabti (241), and the moulds
of plaster for lamps (242-244), Horus (245), a leg of
a figure (246), and a goose's head (247). The little
pottery mould of Cupid (248) was doubtless for the
affix at the base of a handle, on the side of a jar. For
the other numbers on this plate see Meydmn and
MeinpJiis, pp. 41, 43.
67. The preparation of the blue colour which was
used for the glaze was also carried on at Memphis.
The process in its details was traced out by me, from
the factories at Tell el Amarna {Amarna, p. 25,
pi. xiii), and experimentally repeated by Dr. Russell
{Mediirn, p. 44). The colour required a long roasting
at a heat below fusing point, and the careful exclusion
of furnace gases during this process. For this roasting,
the frit colour was made up into balls or pills : these
are of two sizes, the larger V2 inch diameter, see the
example in fig. 232 ; the smaller '3 inch diameter are
more usual, see fig. 231. These pills were then placed