NEW KINGDOM, 18TH DYNASTY, CIRCA 1550-1292 B.C.

Cf. W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, II, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 207-209, fig. 123 for a slender ovoid handled pottery jar, perhaps pointing to a Cypro-Palestinian influence at this time. Hayes writes, 'Four long-necked little pottery jugs (fig. 123) coming from Theban burials of the earlier Thutmoside period, were almost certainly imports into Egypt, probably from Palestine-Syria. Of a type well known and widely distributed throughout the eastern Mediterranean world, they are made of a hard, fine-grained black ware not apparently indigenous to Egypt. The same ware was used in the manufacture of a slender ovoid vase without handles, also of non-Egyptian type.' The choice of material in the above vase suggests it was made in Egypt but under Syro-Palestinian influence. Cf. Exhibition catalogue, Egypt's Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom 1558-1085 B.C., Boston, 1982, p. 164, no. 178 for a similar shape. The shape suggests this flask might have contained opium exported from the Mediterranean, which was used for its medicinal properties.