When we think about the great inventions that have shaped human history – farming, the wheel, the harnessing of electricity, the internet – it is easy to forget the humble vessel. A watertight container for the transportation and storage of liquids, vessels of all kinds were vital for everyday life in the ancient world. Their centrality ensured that vessels of all kinds were commonly buried with individuals, and vessels with fine decoration or made out of rare or hard-to-work materials became important status-symbols. In Predynastic Egypt – before the country was unified under the first Pharaoh, named variously as Narmer or Menes – the stone vessel became the characteristic funerary good. More durable than their pottery counterparts, stone vessels express the Egyptian desire for the provision of individuals in the afterlife – preferably for all eternity. In the later Egyptian worldview, which all the evidence indicates prevailed in some form in the Predynastic, the soul (akh) was a multipartite conception, which existed in parallel with the body (khaw, a plural word meaning ‘the sum of the bodily parts’). The funerary texts reference eight elements to the soul: kht (physical body), sah (spiritual body), rn (the spoken name, identity), ba (personality, individuality), ka (‘double’, the vital essence), ib (the heart, seat of knowledge and emotion), shut (the shadow), and skhm (the ‘power’). These elements existed in an interconnected way, and all eight were necessary in some way to enter the afterlife. The importance of the kht, for example, ensured that the Egyptians went to great extents to ensure the preservation of the physical body, originally natural forms of preservation in the dry sands of the desert but eventually through the artificial process of mummification. Two of the most important elements – the ka and ba – were considered to become corporeal following death, and required sustenance in perpetuity thereafter.

In the tomb, then, the ka (and to a lesser extent, the ba) required food and drink in order to survive. These were provided both in the form of goods buried with the deceased, but also in offerings made daily to the spirits of the deceased. Later, these offerings were made in a chapel associated with the tomb, a publicly accessible part of the tomb infrastructure. But in the Predynastic, offerings were probably made in the open air, near the burial itself. Given that most burials occurred in simple pits, with no superstructure, there was no way of guaranteeing the survival of the goods buried with the deceased. Stone vessels were the answer to this problem: whereas the pottery vessels of everyday life were easily broken, stone vessels were durable enough to sustain the ka in perpetuity. While most of these stone vessels were associated with the physical sustenance of the ka, it should be noted that the Egyptians did not believe in mere survival. For the Egyptians, life was – at least in part – about pleasure (htpw), which was considered a gift from the gods. Obsessed with sensory enjoyment, the Egyptians esteemed scent (khnm), appearance, flavour, touch and comfort. As a result a great many of the vessels interred with Predynastic Egyptians were designed to contain perfumes, oils, unguents and cosmetics. In many cases, these vessels were dramatically oversized, reflecting the desire of the individual to enjoy abundance in the afterlife. Even if the vessel was empty, as was often the case, the mere presence of the appropriate container could ensure that the ka wss well provided-for.

This exceptional vessel is of a type commonly associated with Predynastic Egypt: the cylindrical vessel or beaker. The flat-based cylindrical vessel with a rolled rim was the commonest form of pottery in the Predynastic, with vessels of different sizes produced for various ritual and private purposes. Over time, the classical straight form gave way to examples which flare out to the foot and towards the rim to various degrees, resulting in a gentle hourglass shape. It is this form which is adopted by this exceptional alabaster vessel. With a strongly flared foot, and a slight flare before the everted rolled rim, this vessel dates towards the later part of the Predynastic. Similar to flared cylindrical vessels associated with the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, a contemporary civilisation some 2,000 miles away in northern Afghanistan, this form of vessel may either indicate the result of the trading relationships we know existed – Afghanistan was the only ancient source of lapis lazuli, which was used in Predynastic Egypt – or of some kind of convergent evolution of vessel shapes. It is carved from highly polished Egyptian alabaster, a remarkable material geologically known as travertine. Able to transmit light through its milky-white or honey-gold surface, it was considered sacred by the Egyptians, who associated it with the sun. Re. 1220002.