| Abstract: | SUMMARIES. An ancient Egyptian cartonnage fragment with polychrome decoration was examined to characterize pigments, binder and construction. The fragment, from a broad collar, was radiocarbon-dated to 512—351 BC. The cartonnage is made on a double layer of plain weave linen, the ground being a mixture of calcite and huntite. The pigment colours employed were red, yellow, blue, white, black and green. Red was identified as cinnabar, yellow as orpiment, blue as Egyptian blue, white as lead white and black as charcoal black. Green is now present as an organic copper carbohydrate or proteinate green. The binding medium in the yellow areas was identified as gum arabic. A glue was used in the green areas, although the green pigment also contains some protein, while the binder in the black paint was a mixture of glue and oil. The use of mixed media as a binder on cartonnage has therefore been identified for the first time. An unidentified yellow glaze was also used.
CONCLUSIONS. This cartonnage fragment has provided further insight into the technical art-history of Late Period Egyptian polychromy, from the use of different types of pigments to the variation in binding medium employed, depending on the colour and purpose. Most of the copper-containing greens used by the Egyptians were either Egyptian green, malachite or chrysocolla, although green earth was also found on the USC Graeco-Roman cartonnage reported earlier [1]. It is interesting that both fragments from the USC collections so far examined should have copper greens that are now present as copper proteinate or copper carbohydrate paints, and that these are not necessarily derived from deterioration processes associated with the copper trihydroxychlondes. In one case, no evidence for the presence of chlonde ions could be found, and surface chloride ions may be just that and have no particular association with the original pigment. This impression is substantiated by the work presented by Lee and Quirke [15] who do not report a single example of the copper trihydroxychlondes occurring as an original pigment in the Egyptian art that they have examined. Thus, if they were used as the original green pigment, this use is a rare event. Examination of further examples of Egyptian art should help us to understand the origin and extent of the use of copper-containing paints which are now present as organometallic complexes. The presence of some huntite in the calcite ground layer is interesting in view of its possible use as a demographic indicator, as shown by recent work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art [30]. Relatively few objects of the Late Period through the Roman period (c. 712 BC—AD 476) were found to contain any huntite, so it is also of interest from a temporal aspect that huntite was found in this study. The use of lead white as a white paint over the calcite and huntite ground may have been employed to create a colour contrast in the whites themselves, or at least in the painted areas of the design. The discovery of lead white in this cartonnage is of interest, since both the radiocarbon and the stylistic investigation indicate a date between 512 and 351 BC. There is no evidence for the use of lead white in Egyptian art before the Late Period, and this choice of colourant would appear to be a possible indicator of Roman influence. Gum arabic has been used as the principal binding medium for this cartonnage. The presence of a small amount of protein only in the green paint is difficult to account for, and further research may be able to clarify the nature of the original paint used. In terms of deterioration, there has been selective loss of some of the pigmented surfaces, particularly of the red and green painted regions, but no recent paint losses were found, nor are the remaining pigments poorly adhered to the ground. The plain weave linen backing is in remarkably good condition, considering that it is 2300-2500 years old, and no consolidation of the cartonnage is necessary — only careful handling and packing are required. |
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