Tut Exhibit - King Tutankhamun Exhibit, Collection: Statues, Sculptures and Containers - Alabaster Flask

The Tutankhamun Exhibit

Statues, Sculptures and Containers

Alabaster perfume holder with blue faience neck

Alabaster Flask

This flask is one of a pair of almost identical vases fashioned in a new style and apparently not in large numbers, to judge from the known examples. It is made of the finest alabaster, with no break in the continuity of the gentle curves of its outline. Spaced apart on its long neck are three inlaid bands of imitation lotus petals, the blue being faience and the white limestone, all suspended from strings of black and white glass. They represent the garlands that were regularly at this period attached to pottery jars at feasts and were reproduced, as characteristic features, on painted pottery at the palace of Amenhotpe III and at Amarna. Stains on the alabaster suggest that the vase had been used in the king's lifetime; the slight residue of its contents remaining inside the vase could not be identified.