Drinking Cup

This jar was probably imported from western Asia and may have been brought to Egypt by one of the foreign wives of Thutmose III as part of her dowry. The form, which has a button-shaped base now masked by gold leaf over plaster restoration, has a long history in Mesopotamia. Fragments of glassy faience vessels with a similar variegated pattern have been found at the site of Nuzi (modern Yorgan Tepe, Iraq), which flourished in the kingdom of Mitanni during the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. Glass making appears to have originated in Mesopotamia and been imported into Egypt early in Dynasty 18. Egyptian artisans had been making faience, a substance related to glass, for more than a thousand years and they quickly mastered the art of glassmaking as well.