Object Study: An Old Kingdom votive dish with

possible food residue

Lloyd D. Graham

Short report describing a miniature dish of coarse redware discovered adjacent to the causeway
of the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, Egypt. The dish was intact and of a known Old Kingdom type.
Interestingly, the centre of the dish pan had an irregular area of pale discoloration and a more
glossy surface texture, suggestive of residue from a small food offering.

Introduction: On a visit to the Bent Pyramid complex in Dahshur in Jan 2018, an intact miniature
dish was discovered at the surface. It was recorded photographically and re-concealed on-site.

Findspot: Dahshur, incompletely buried in a mound of disturbed sand/scree adjacent to the

causeway of the Bent Pyramid, between the pyramid and its Statue Temple (Valley Temple). A red
square in Fig. 1 marks the approximate location.

Fig. 1. Plan of Snefru’s pyramid complex at Dahshur. Adapted from original map
by Janmad at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dahszur_map_2.png,
reproduced here under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 2.5.

Description: Intact shallow dish/bowl/plate/saucer of thick coarse redware, presumably fired Nile
silt (Fig. 2). Hyperboloid/inflected form with flat base (3.4 cm diam.) and modelled rim (5.8 -5.9 cm
diam.), height 1.7 cm. Outer rim profile was inconsistent, varying from angular (Fig. 2c, left) to
rounded (Fig. 2c, right). Rough and friable internal and external surfaces; buried portion orange-
brown, exposed portion with purple tinge (lower two-thirds and upper third of dish pan in Fig. 2a,
respectively), demarcated by whitish salt line. White surface salt crystals/efflorescence especially
noticeable on base (Fig. 2b). Dish was wheel-made but somewhat asymmetric, with string-cut base
(Fig. 2b). Area of lighter surface colour – a pale coating with much finer particles and a more
reflective/glossy surface near centre of dish pan (ca. 1.2 x 1.5 cm, irregular outline, eccentric relative
to pan centre; Fig. 2a) – is consistent with residue from a small food offering.

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Fig. 2. Intact miniature dish found at Dahshur. a, pan (6.0 cm diam.); b, base; c, side view. Photographed on-
site using a black booklet cover as a backdrop to maximise clarity and contrast.

Parallels: Various Old Kingdom specimens, as follows. Vessel matches Fig. 24-11 (5.8 cm diam.) 1 and
resembles Fig. 24-12 (6.5 cm diam.) from the Bent Pyramid complex in Simpson (1961),2 although
perhaps more red than brown. It matches Pl. 50-I in Milward-Jones (1991),3 although at 5.85 cm
diam. it is smaller than the published example (8.6 cm diam.). It matches the shape of 3-CF/CV in Fig.
XLVIII of Bárta (1995), although the published version is smaller (4.2 cm diam.).4 It matches N-OE-20
(5.6 cm diam.) & N-OE-53 (6.4 cm diam.) in Fig. 3a of Faltings (1989)5 and resembles N-OE-15, N-OE-
46 & N-OE-52 in the same publication. It resembles no. 15 (profile) and 19 (rim) in Fig. 9 of
Marchand & Baud (1996), cf. photos toward front of Fig. 12b in the same publication.6 It is similar to
No. 238 (4.8 cm diam.) in Fig. XLVIII of Ricke (1968).7

Comparanda on display in the Cairo Museum (Feb 2018) include funerary offering dishes/model
food dishes from the Old Kingdom necropoleis of Abusir (Fig. 3) and Abu Rawash (Fig. 4).

The found item represents what is now a less common type of votive dish at the Bent Pyramid site,
with many of the countless surface fragments of miniature dishes around this pyramid being made
of finer fabric with a smoother/less friable surface and a distinct disc base, e.g. Fig. 5 (diam. = 7.0
cm), intermediate in form between Pl. 50-E & F in Milward-Jones (diams. 5.8-6.5 cm).

2
Fig. 3. Funerary offering dishes/model food dishes from the Old Kingdom necropolis of Abusir. As displayed
in the Cairo Museum. Author’s photograph (Feb 2018).

Fig. 4. Funerary offering dishes/model food dishes from the Old Kingdom necropolis of Abu Rawash. As
displayed in the Cairo Museum. Author’s photograph (Feb 2018).

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Fig. 5. Diagnostic fragment from a miniature dish made of finer fabric with a smoother finish. Surface find
(7.0 cm diam.) near the Bent Pyramid. In this case, there was no suggestion of food residue in the central area
of the dish pan (top left image). Photographed on a rocky outcrop at the site; lower images use a flint pebble
to balance the sherd for cross-sectional views.

Analysis and dating: The intact miniature plate was found close to the causeway which leads from
the Bent Pyramid to its Statue/Valley Temple; the findspot was roughly equidistant from the
pyramid and a large Old Kingdom mastaba field (Fig. 1). William K. Simpson has noted that “The
pottery from Dahshur derives to a large extent from the Valley Temple. To the east of the temple
was a vast pottery dump, over the southern limit of which a later approach to the temple was
constructed.”8 Stratigraphic analysis of pottery at different levels in that dump yielded no
meaningful data.9 Presumably the intact miniature plate had been disgorged from another pottery
dump located some distance to the west of the Valley Temple, perhaps one which held material
discarded from the pyramid precinct at the top of the causeway.

The votive dish was presumably discarded after use in cult ritual10,11,12 for King Snefru, one of his
children or high officials, or one of the priests of his subsequent mortuary cult.13 Daily offerings
required vast numbers of miniature offering vessels to be used and discarded in the Old Kingdom.14
The cult of Snefru continued at the Bent Pyramid during the Middle Kingdom,15 but the number of

4
miniature vessels deposited in this later phase would have been smaller.16,17 Although the archaism
of votive miniatures means that one cannot exclude the possibility of an origin in Dynasties 11-
12,18,19,20 and Simpson notes that “The [...] dishes are frequent in the Middle Kingdom as well as the
Old,”21 miniatures of comparable shape in the Handbook of the Pottery of the Egyptian Middle
Kingdom tend to be larger: hyperboloid forms range 7.4-11.0 cm diam and inflected ones 7.2-12.0
cm.22 The closest shape-matches in the Handbook‘s corpus are type IV.1.B.2.b, no. 10 (8.8 cm diam.),
type IV.1.D.4.c, no. 34 (7.1 cm diam.) and type IV.1.E.3.a, no. 4 (13 cm diam.).23 In the region-specific
volume of the Handbook, the closest shape match from Dahshur was Fig. 4, type 10, no. 227 (8.8
cm).24

Since the found item conformed to a known Old Kingdom type, with a size more typical of the Old
than the Middle Kingdom, and since the majority of such finds in the Bent Pyramid area derive from
the Old Kingdom, it is most likely that the item was produced during Dynasties 4-6. More specifically,
the parallels to the found object in Simpson’s catalogue of pottery from the precinct (his Figs. 24-
11,12) are particularly associated with the North Offering Place opposite the northern entrance to
the Bent Pyramid.25 Of this offering-place, Ahmed Fakhry tells us that “There were found around this
building great quantities of small votive offering vases [i.e., dishes/plates], most of which were
smaller than the usual IVth dynasty ones and resemble[d] very much the smaller votive vases of the
Vth and VIth dynasties.”26

Placement within a typological study: A systematic comparison of Old Kingdom votive bowls is
presented by Svetlana Malykh in her 2010 monograph Egyptian Votive Pottery of the Old Kingdom.27
The cross-sectional profile of the found item matches vessel types 7.2.Aa, 7.2.Ba and 7.2.Ea in
Malykh’s typology.28 Chronologically, all three types are known to have been produced from the
reign of Snefru in Dynasty 4 until Dynasty 6, and examples of all three have been found at
Dahshur.29 These three types account for 30%, 17% and 3.6%, respectively, of all the Type 7 vessels
(i.e., bowls/plates) in Malykh’s analysis.30 The three types are distinguished from one another by
different ratios of rim diam: base diam: height, with their canonical values being 3:2:1 (Aa), 4:2:1
(Ba) and 5:3:1 (Ea).31 For the found object, the observed ratio is 3.44:2.00:1.00, which makes it
intermediate between the 7.2.Aa and 7.2.Ba types, and slightly closer to the former. As already
noted, both of these types are common in the Old Kingdom corpus; indeed, 7.2.Aa is the most
abundant class of Type 7 vessel overall and 7.2.Ba is the second most abundant.32 The conformity of
the Dahshur plate to popular Old Kingdom proportions provides further support for its identification
as an Old Kingdom vessel. Malykh notes that the 7.2.Aa type was used for kings, nobility, craftsmen
and artisans, while the 7.2.Ba type was associated mainly with the upper two of these social strata.33
Such uses are consistent with the interim conclusion (drawn above) that the votive dish was
probably discarded after use in a ritual offering to King Snefru, one of his children or high officials, or
one of the priests of his subsequent mortuary cult.

Malykh observes of type 7.2.Aa dishes that “This subtype was used in the commemoration of the
kings (Snefru in Dahshur and Neferefra in Abusir) and the nobility (Ptahshepses in Abusir) to the 6th
dynasty. In Saqqara, it also continued to be used in the 6th dynasty – in the tomb of Vizier
Merefnebef and in the complexes of nobility around it. Thus, in the four regions of the pyramid zone
– in Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and Dahshur – plates of subtype 7.2.Aa existed until the 6th dynasty, and in
Dahshur they were used in both of the Snefru memorial complexes, both at the Red and the Bent
Pyramids. ”34 Although type 7.2.Ba appears early in Dynasty 4 in association with Snefru at Meidum,
its appearance at Dahshur seems to be confined to the Red Pyramid area.35 Overall, the use of both
types of vessel peaked in the late 5th to early 6th Dynasty.36 If required to choose between type
7.2.Aa or 7.2.Ba for the found item, these additional considerations lend support to the already-

5
favoured identification of it as a dish of type 7.2.Aa, the commonest type of votive plate/dish in Old
Kingdom times. A date in the late 5th to early 6th Dynasty for the found object would be consistent
with its provisional attribution to the same dynasties at the end of the previous section.

Although we can never know for sure the person to whose ka the Dahshur dish was offered, we can
agree with Malykh that the concept of pottery models “was inseparable from the person of the
king.”37 As the concrete equivalent of the offering formula ḥtp di nsw, pottery votive plates like this
represented the material embodiment of “feeding by the king’s will.”38

Discussion and future possibilities: The area of possible food residue, which appeared to have acted
as a binder for the otherwise friable surface of the vessel, is interesting. Such direct evidence of
ritual use does not seem to be documented in reports of other miniature dishes. Svetlana Malykh
proposes that the early use of votive plates during Dynasty 4 would have involved them containing
“a small amount of [...] meal,” which in most cases would probably have been bread.39 Over time,
she presumes, the vessel itself came to suffice as the symbol of a meal for the deceased.40
Accordingly, if the found item dates from the late 5th/early 6th Dynasty – the time of greatest
popularity for this type of dish – then it is less likely to have originally contained a sample of food.

Whether or not the Dahshur dish once held a food offering, other newly excavated votive dishes
(and unwashed specimens in institutional and private collections) may preserve food residues in the
manner considered here, especially if they date from the early 4th Dynasty. Non-destructive
spectroscopic methods such as FT-IR can be used to confirm whether suspected food-derived
deposits are indeed organic in nature.41 For vessels that test positive, extraction of the residues from
scrapings may permit chemical analysis (e.g., by LC-MS/MS or GC-MS/MS, using scrapings from
outside the deposit area as control samples).42 The profile of organic compounds and/or the survival
of distinctive biomolecules in such residues43 could help to identify the nature of the foodstuff(s)
offered to the deceased on these miniature dishes.

Text (excluding quotations) and images (excluding Fig. 1) © Lloyd D. Graham, 2018; v.04_12.12.21.

Cite as: Lloyd D. Graham (2018) “Object Study: An Old Kingdom votive dish with possible food residue,” online
at https://www.academia.edu/36027973/Object_Study_An_Old_Kingdom_votive_dish_with_possible_food_residue.

1
In this report, diameter values (without qualification as to what part of the vessel is intended) are in all cases
rim diameters.
2
William K. Simpson (1961) “Corpus of the Dahshur Pottery,” In: The Monuments of Sneferu at Dahshur, vol. II
pt. 2: The Finds, ed. Ahmed Fakhry, General Organisation for Government Printing Offices, Cairo, p.105-
140, at p.139.
3
Angela Milward-Jones (1991) “Pottery – Old Kingdom,” in Ali el-Khouli, Meidum, ACER 3, 43-45 & Pl. 50.
4
Miroslav Bárta (1995) “Pottery Inventory and the Beginning of the IVth Dynasty,” GM 149, 15-24.
5
Dina Faltings (1989) “Die Keramik aus den Grabungen an der Nördlichen Pyramide des Snofru in Dahschur:
Arbeitsbericht über die Kampagnen 1983–1986,” MDAIK 45, 133-154.
6
Sylvie Marchand & Michel Baud (1996) “La Céramique Miniature d’Abou Rawash. Un Dépôt à l’Entrée des
Enclos Orientaux.” BIFAO 96, 255-288.
7
Herbert Ricke, ed. (1968) “Das Sonnenheiligtum des Könings Userkaf,” vol. II, ed. Herbert Ricke,
Schweizerisches Institut für Ägyptische Bauforschung und Altertumskunde, Cairo, p.75.
8
Simpson (1961), p.106. Potsherds, vase fragments and sealings in this dump dated from Dynasties 4-11;
Ahmed Fakhry (1961) “From the IVth Dynasty to the Beginning of the XIIth Dynasty,” In: The Monuments of
Sneferu at Dahshur, vol. II pt. 2: The Finds, ed. Ahmed Fakhry, General Organisation for Government
Printing Offices, Cairo, p.9-14, at 13-14. See also note 2, which mentions that the type of votive dish central

6
 to this article is associated more with the main offering temple at the pyramid than with the Statue/Valley
Temple.
9
Simpson (1961), p.106.
10
Meredith Brand & Amber Hutchinson (2014/15) “Shabtis, Scarabs, Miniature Vessels, and Glass from Abydos
in the Calverley Collection: Preliminary Results of the Calverley Artefact Project (CAP),” JSSEA 41, 1-36, at
21-23 & 27.
11
Bárta (1995), 17.
12
Susan Allen (2006) “Miniature and Model Vessels in Ancient Egypt,” In: The Old Kingdom Art and
Archaeology – Proceedings of the Conference held in Prague, May 31-June 4, 2004, ed. Miroslav Bárta,
Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University in Prague, p.19-24, at p.22.
13
B. G. Trigger, B.J. Kemp, D. O’Connor & A.B. Lloyd (1983) Ancient Egypt: A Social History, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, p.95.
14
Brand & Hutchinson (2014/15), 23.
15
Trigger et al. (1983), p.95.
16
Brand & Hutchinson (2014/15), 23 & 27.
17
Trigger et al. (1983), p.95.
18
Of simple and inflected miniature vessels, Anne Seiler writes that “miniature and model bowls with flat
bases were produced throughout all periods of Egyptian history without any major morphological changes.
This is why it is impossible to date them exclusively by shape.” Anne Seiler (2012) “Open Miniature and
Model Vessels,” In: Handbook of the Pottery of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, vol. I: The Corpus Volume, ed.
Robert Schiestl & Anne Seiler, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, p.840-
935, at p.884 & 904.
19
Allen (2006), p.19 & Fig. 4.
20
The Valley Temple was neglected after the end of the 6th Dynasty and restored in the 12th Dynasty. Simpson
(1961), Ch. VII.
21
Simpson (1961), p.139.
22
Anne Seiler (2012), p.856 & 904.
23
Seiler (2012), p.858, 888 & 905.
24
Dorothea Arnold (2012) “Use and Disposal in a ‘Priest’s House’ at Dahshur,” In: Handbook of the Pottery of
the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, vol. II: The Regional Volume, ed. Robert Schiestl & Anne Seiler, Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, p.161-184, at p.173.
25
Abbreviated “N.O.P.” in Simpson (1961), p.139; explained p.106.
26
Ahmed Fakhry (1959) “The Bent Pyramid: The Southern Khaʿ-Pyramid of Sneferu,” In: The Monuments of
Sneferu at Dahshur, vol. I: The Bent Pyramid, ed. Ahmed Fakhry, General Organisation for Government
Printing Offices, Cairo, p.35-74, at 46.
27
Svetlana E. Malykh (2010) Egyptian Votive Pottery of the Old Kingdom, Russian Academy of Sciences –
Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow, p.59-85; English summary table p.256-257 (Table 27). See also the
colour photos in Plates 13, 15, 19 & 21-28 at end of book. For an English summary of the monograph’s
conclusions, see p.249-252.
28
Malykh (2010), p.256-257 (Table 27).
29
Malykh (2010), p.256-257 (Table 27).
30
Calculated from item counts in Malykh (2010), p.256-257 (Table 27).
31
Malykh (2010), p.59 (Fig. 13) 7 p.256-257 (Table 27).
32
Calculated from item counts in Malykh (2010), p.256-257 (Table 27).
33
Malykh (2010), p.256-257 (Table 27).
34
Malykh (2010), p.74-75; my translation into English.
35
Malykh (2010), p.76.
36
Malykh (2010), p.75 (Fig. 15) & p.76 (Fig. 16).
37
Malykh (2010), p.252.
38
Malykh (2010), p.252. For example, Simpson (1961), p.106, notes that “Sealings found during the season of
1955 indicate that the cult [at Dahshur] was provided with pottery offerings under Kings Weserkaf,
Neferirkare, and Neuserre of Dynasty V; on the sealings, the names of the[se] kings appear with those of
Sneferu.”
39
Malykh (2010), p.251.
40
Malykh (2010), p.251.

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41
E.g.: Lisa M. Shillito, Matthew J. Almond, Karen Wicks, Lisa-Jane R. Marshall, Wendy Matthews (2009) “The
use of FT-IR as a screening technique for organic residue analysis of archaeological samples,”
Spectrochimica Acta A 72, 120-125.
42
E.g.: Carl Heron & Richard P. Evershed (1993) “The analysis of organic residues and the study of pottery use,”
In: Archaeological Method and Theory, ed. M. Schiffer, University of Arizona Press, Arizona, p.247-284.
43
The generally dry environment should minimize the extent to which such samples have been compromised
by microbial spoilage.