(44) During the clearance of the west end of the north trench, a small pot was found, of the form shewn in figure 9, containing a small quantity of a substance which had the appearance of red brick dust. The pot appears to have had a neck, but it is now missing, and a section has been broken out of the side. On the other side of the pot there is a small hole. The shape of the pot is not characteristic, and it may well be of a date later than that of the obelisk. The glaze is of a dark reddish-brown colour, and is the coarsest I have ever seen, being very uneven and covered with bubble-craters. The Director of the Chemical Department kindly allowed analyses to be made of the glaze and also of the contents of the pot. As regards the glaze, Mr. W. B. Pollard of the Chemical Department staff, who has had experience in the analysis of glazes, has suggested that it is a natural one, perhaps due to the pot lying in a fire of burning vegetable matter. This seems very likely since there seems to have been a great deal of burning in removing the upper layers of granite during the extraction of monuments from the quarries (section [4]).
Fig. 10.—Scale ½
The contents of the pot are reported to be ochre and not burnt brick, though the ochre is of poor quality. It seems that we have here the material of the paint used in the quarries. It was probably mixed, before use, with acacia gum.
Ochre, of various colours, occurs within a mile of the obelisk in the rocks above the Luxor-Shellâl railway line.
(45) During the clearance of the west end of the north trench, we found part of an ostrakon in the hieratic character. It is written in black ink in a piece of pottery, measuring 16 × 12 cent., of the dull red with yellow slip common to the XVIIIth–XIXth dynasty. Mr. Battiscombe Gunn, who has lately been translating the recently discovered ostraka and graffiti for some of the excavators at Thebes, has kindly examined this ostrakon and reports that the writing is of characteristic XIXth dynasty type. This is shewn in figure 10. {46}
The hieroglyphic version of the ostrakon is: (
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