About This Lesson
Painting on Egyptian pottery is not very common before the New Kingdom but appears often in the late 18th Dynasty. Painted vessels can be colorfully decorated with floral motifs using cobalt blue and other mineral pigments mined from the deserts of Egypt. These vessels would originally have contained luxury liquids such as wine. This blue-decorated pottery was first recognized on a bigger scale at the palace of king Amenhotep III (1388-1351/50 BC). The painted pottery in the Liverpool collection comes from the palace site at Tell el-Amarna, built by Amenhotep III’s son, king Akenaten.