Fig. 296.—Enamelled earthenware. British Museum.
Fig. 297.—Enamelled earthenware. British Museum.
Fig. 298.—Enamelled faience. British Museum.
Fig. 299.—Doorway in the Stepped Pyramid at Sakkarah.
We do not know whether these tiles were used for the floors and walls in the dwellings of rich Egyptians or not, but it appears certain that their manufacture was understood even as early as the Ancient Empire. The doorway of a chamber in the stepped pyramid of Sakkarah is enframed with enamelled plaques. A sketch of Perring's, which we reproduce, gives a good idea of this arrangement (Fig. [299]).[368] Some of these plaques are now in London, but a still larger number are in the Berlin Museum, where the doorway as a whole has been restored, the missing parts being replaced by copies. Our Figures [300]-302 show the back, the front, and the profile, of a single plaque. The obverse is slightly convex, and covered with a greenish-blue glaze; the reverse has a salient tenon which was held securely by the mortar. Through a small hole in this tenon a rod of wood or metal may have passed which, by uniting all the plaques in each horizontal row, would give additional solidity to the whole arrangement.[369] On the backs of several plaques there are marks which seem to be rotation numbers. They are figured in the centre of Perring's sketch. Other bricks from the same doorway are covered with an almost black enamel. They form the horizontal mouldings between the rows of upright bricks, and are decorated with a sort of arrow-head pattern.
Figs. 300-302.—Enamelled plaque from the Stepped Pyramid.