LATE OLD KINGDOM TO EARLY NEW KINGDOM, 6TH–18TH DYNASTY, 2345–1525 B.C.

Carved from obsidian – a volcanic glass not native to Egypt and likely imported from eastern Anatolia – this small cup was probably once part of an “Opening of the Mouth” set. Cups of this form, known in Egyptian as henet, were typically made in pairs: one of a light-colored stone such as limestone or alabaster, and the other of a dark stone such as obsidian or basalt. These paired vessels were commonly accompanied by other ritual implements, including the pesesh-kef wand, a handled tool with a bifurcated top thought to have been used symbolically to cut the umbilical cord of the deceased, enabling birth and rebirth (for a discussion of the ritual, see A.M. Roth, “The psš-kf and the 'Opening of the Mouth' Ceremony: A Ritual of Birth and Rebirth,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 78, pp. 113-147).

By the Old Kingdom, such sets were frequently placed in elite burials, fitted into a common limestone base with recessed areas for each element. Evidence for their continued use appears in the Middle Kingdom, as shown by a 12th Dynasty pesesh-kef wand of dark stone inscribed for Mentuhotep II of the 11th Dynasty, now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 24.2.1, p. 270 in A. Oppenheim, et al., eds., Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom). The latest known example of a dark-stone cup of this type may be a fragment of obsidian, similar in size and form to the present piece and inscribed with the cartouche of the early 18th Dynasty pharaoh Nebpehtyre Ahmose (circa 1550–1525 B.C.), now in the Corning Museum of Glass (inv. no. 61.7.2, no. 50 in Glass from the Ancient World: The Ray Winfield Smith Collection).