New Year's Bottle

The ancient Egyptians believed that with each sunrise creation began anew. The Egyptian new year, coinciding with the annual inundation of the Nile, provided a metaphor for prosperity and blessings that were gifts from their gods. Bottles like these were meant to capture Nile flood water as a symbol of good luck and were given as gifts. This New Year’s Bottle, is inscribed on the sides with hieroglyphs that wish a beautiful opening of the new year to its intended recipient. The bottle is made of green faience, like the color of water. It is also decorated with solar motifs such as the baboons on its neck that are known to dance and shriek at sunrise. Its rim forms a papyrus umbel, the word for which in Egyptian means “to flourish.” What I find so wonderful about this ceramic vessel is that it is over 3,500 years old but has survived so perfectly intact and when you hold it in your hands, it is as light as a balloon.

-Dr. Lorelei Corcoran, Director, Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology