© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi �0.��63/�874�665-� �3400�5 Journal of Egyptian History 7 (�0 �4) �09–�4 � brill.com/jeh The Collapse of Faience Figurine Production at the End of the Middle Kingdom: Reading the History of an Epoch between Postmodernism and Grand Narrative Gianluca Miniaci University College London g.miniaci@gmail.com Abstract The aim of the article is to trace the history of faience figurines in late Middle Kingdom Egypt, following a metanarrative level of synthesis. Moving from one of the most visi- ble changes in the course of history, the turn from Modernism to Postmodernism, the article defines a key to read the path of faience figurine production from their appear- ance in the late Middle Kingdom to their disuse at the end of the Second Intermediate Period: changes in the pattern of society correspond to the production of a different material culture and to the abandonment of previous perceptions. Faience figurines represent a diagnostic category of objects defining a specific epoch. Their value as his- torical signatures is here used to supply a different interpretation for the history of the Second Intermediate Period Egypt, integrating microhistories with bigger pictures, as a combination of Postmodernism and Grand Narratives approaches. * This paper has been partly taken from a lecture given at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research—University of Cambridge for the ‘Egyptian World’ seminar series on 14th November 2012. I would like to thank Rune Nyord for organising the event and Janine Bourriau for useful suggestions. I would like to thank also for help, constant support, and revision of the text, Stephen Quirke, Marilina Betrò and Paul Whelan. The following abbre- viations for museums are used in the text: MMA = Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; UC = Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College of London; Ashmolean = Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford.