Old Kingdom Meidum Bowls at Kom el-Hisn: Pottery reflects a delta community’s relationship with the Egyptian State (working title)

Sarah L. Sterling
Portland State University


Assemblages of Old Kingdom ceramics from particular locations frequently exhibit attribute variation at a local scale, despite their tendency to fall into a restricted series of forms that are common to most assemblages, regardless of location. This is indicative of local manufacture wherein vessel similarities result from shared ideas about making pots, rather than actual centralized production. When ceramic similarities reflect shared ideas, they become useful tools for measuring patterns of interaction. A select sample of Old Kingdom vessels, sometimes referred to as “Meidum bowls,” from Kom el-Hisn were compared to assemblages from other locations in Egypt in terms of both fabric and morphology. Across all comparisons; the selected Kom el-Hisn ceramics reflect local production. Furthermore, when compared using analysis of variance and discriminant function analysis, Kom el-Hisn materials are more statistically “distant” from similar Old Kingdom vessels recovered from other contexts. This observation is potentially explained by Kom el-Hisn’s provincial relationship to the larger Egyptian “state.”