Sadigh Gallery: Ancient Egyptian Palette

(Available at Sadigh Gallery: Cosmetic palette made from black basalt with a symbol to one side. Egyptians used intricately carved palettes to grind the pigments for eye makeup. The history of cosmetics goes back thousands of years. The bible, for example, describes the practice of anointing the head and body with oil. The most famous figure associated with cosmetics was Cleopatra VII, the last Queen of Egypt, who was noted for her skill in making and using cosmetics. Middle Kingdom. 2040-1786 BC. 8" x 4")

The Palette term used to refer to two distinct artifacts: cosmetic and scribal pallets.

Cosmetic/ceremonial palettes, usually of siltstone (greywacke), have been found in the form of grave goods in cemeteries as early as the Baldarian period (c. 5500 – 4000 BC).  They were used to grind pigments such as malachite or galena, from which eye-paint was made.  The early examples were simply rectangular in shape, but by the Naqada I period (c. 4000 – 3500 BC), they were generally carved into more elaborate geometric forms including a rhomboid which resembles the symbol of the later fertility god Minor, the schematic silhouettes or animals such as hippopotami and turtles (sometimes with inlaid eyes).

By this time, cosmetic palettes had almost certainly acquired ritualistic or magical connotations.  In the Naqada II period (c. 3500 – 3100 BC) the preferred shape tended to be the forms of fish or birds, rather than animals, and many were shield-shaped, with two birds’ heads at the top. 

By the terminal Predynastic period, the range of shapes of the smaller cosmetic palettes had become considerably reduced, but simultaneously a new and more elaborate ceremonial form began to be produced.  These palettes (usual oval or shield-shaped) were employed as votive items in temples rather than as grave goods, and a large number were found in the form of a cache in the Early Dynastic temple at Hierakonpolis.  They were carved with reliefs depicting the ideology and rituals of the emerging elite, and the quintessential surviving example is the “Narmer Palette”. 

The “Narmer Palette” was found in the so-called “main deposit” at Kom el-Ahmar, i.e. Hierakonpolis.  This is perhaps the most intensely studied of all Egyptian artifacts and the most well known.  This triangular piece of black basalt depicts a king whose name is given as Nar-Mer in the hieroglyphs. On the obverse he is shown wearing the white crown of the south and holding a mace about to crush the head of a northern foe, and on the reverse, the same figure is shown wearing the red crown of the north while a bull (a symbol of the pharaoh's power) rages below him, smashing the walls of a city and trampling yet another foe.  At first, it was taken for a plate commemorating a specific historical event, such as the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, or a military victory over some foreign people.  However,  later  research drift towards it being either a wholly symbolic event aimed at manifesting the King's power, or summarize the year in which it was made and presented to the temple.

Scribal palettes generally consisted of long rectangular pieces of wood or stone (averaging 30 cm long and 60 cm wide), each with a shallow central groove or slot to hold the reed bushes or pens and one or two circular depressions at one end, to hold cakes of pigment.  The hieroglyph used as the determinative for the words “scribe” and “writing” consisted of a set of scribes’ equipment, including a shorter version of the palette.