Kohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus Column

Kohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus Column

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The middle of the second millennium B.C. was a true color revolution in faience and glass technologies. The ancient Egyptians had mastered faience, a ceramic-type material glazed in a distinctive turquoise blue, much earlier, but no glass seems to have been deliberately produced in Egypt before Dynasty 18. Following Thutmose III’s military campaigns abroad (ca. 1458–1438 B.C.), Egyptian artisans emulated the sophisticated techniques for making polychrome glass known in Mesopotamia and Syria. They also began using glass colorants (including cobalt, antimony, and lead) in faience production. Luxury items in glass, like this small kohl tube in the shape of a papyrus column, became all the rage.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus ColumnKohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus ColumnKohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus ColumnKohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus ColumnKohl Tube in the Shape of a Papyrus Column

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.