AMARNA FACTORIES, WORKSHOPS, FAIENCE MOULDS AND THEIR PRODUCE By Bart Vanthuyne 1 egories with the places of deposition of the perti- nent objects, thus establishing possible patterns of supply and demand. I also, different from the previ- ous studies, examined the implications of the large mould concentrations found by Petrie. 6 Further a comparison will be made between the use of fa- ience in daily life with that in mortuary contexts. The role of the different players in the faience mar- ket will also be addressed. Based on the results of the investigations and on published evidence con- cerning other industries, the broader economic pic- ture of Amarna will be discussed. All published Egypt Exploration Society (EES), Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG) and Amarna Project records, as well as the Amarna Small Finds Database (ASFD) 7 were consulted. In each source the find list of each excavated building was exam- ined to determine the quantities and subtypes of moulds and small faience objects. When provided, object colours were also recorded. This data was compiled in various MS Excel sheets. Making use of Adobe Illustrator CS3, the Excel data was plotted on digitised base maps of the city 8 in order to visu- alize the distribution patterns of both moulds and finished objects. Stone moulds and identified kilns and ovens were also plotted on the base maps. In total 38 distribution maps were made of which 6 are included at the end of this article. IntroductIon In 1892 Petrie discovered thousands of pottery moulds, used for the manufacture of small faience objects, in Amarna, the short-lived late 18 th dy- nasty capital located in Middle Egypt. 2 Further Ger- man and British excavations yielded hundreds more. This material received little attention, how- ever, until Boyce 3 and later Shortland 4 studied the distribution patterns of these objects across the site. Their findings will be briefly presented below. In the meantime, results from new excavations and experimental archaeology have further en- hanced our understanding of the Amarna faience industry, making it possible to reevaluate some of the conclusions reached by my predecessors. Ac- cess to previously unpublished finds of old excava- tions has also increased the number of moulds available for study. I have reexamined the distribution of moulds in Amarna and additionally I have looked into the distribution of selected types of moulded objects 5 , i.e. faience rings, pendants, and casts depicting bunches of grapes, Bes, Taweret, or a Hathor head, as well as bovid figurines. In this article I will limit myself to the first two categories. An inquiry into the supply source(s) of the Great Palace mould- ed inlays was also made. All this was done in order to correlate the production source(s) of object cat- 1 This article summarises part of my 2010 MA archaeology thesis “Faience moulds in New Kingdom Egypt” at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (supervisor H. Wil- lemS). The impetus for this study was the discovery in 2008 of nine faience moulds in al-Shaykh Sa‛īd, just north of Amarna, by the Belgian archaeological mission to Dayr al- Barshā (financed by FWO-Vlaanderen; Bijzonder Onder- zoeksfonds KULeuven); I would like to thank H. WillemS, A. StevenS and A. Shortland for reading a preliminary draft of this article and providing valuable feedback. 2 Petrie 1894, 30. 3 Boyce 1995b. 4 Shortland 2000, 63–77. 5 Boyce 1995b, 370, also believed such work might prove fruitful. 6 Smirniou and rehren’s (2011) recent reexamination of semi- finished glass excavated by Petrie and stored at the Petrie Museum has also enhanced our understanding of the Am- arna glass industry. 7 See www1 for more info; The ASFD includes all objects, including previously unpublished ones, assigned a registra- tion number during the course of the EES excavations from 1921–1936. 8 KemP and Garfi 1993, map sheets 3-7: Reproduced by cour- tesy of the Egypt Exploration Society, Barry KemP and Salvatore Garfi; KemP’s plan of Amarna with superim- posed excavation grid: Reproduced by courtesy of Barry KemP; Each grid square measures 200 x 200m. Ägypten und Levante/Egypt and the Levant 22, 2012, 395–429 © 2013 by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien