The Cairo Museum contains a vast number of terracottas, most still unpublished163, and the extant, partial publications of this corpus offer very little discussion of ceramic fabric164 . The constraints of staffing concerns and the schedules of the museum’s curatorial staff permitted me to examine 33 figurines outside of their cases, spending about 15-20 minutes on the fabric and technological analysis of each object165 . These 33 figurines examined outside of the vitrines (Figs. C1-C35) will henceforth be called Group A166 .
Supplementing the detailed study of Group A was a more general examination of over 700 additional terracotta figurines on display within the vitrines at the Cairo Museum (Barrett, in preparation [c]), including much material never previously published. In addition to written descriptions and photographs of all the figurines on display, I also carried out more detailed examinations of the fabric and manufacturing techniques of 71 selected figurines, henceforth called Group B (Figs. C36-C57, C67-C75) . Unlike the Group A figurines, which were examined outside of their cases, handled in person, and inspected with a hand lens, Group B could be observed only through the glass of the vitrines167 . I selected these particular figurines for more detailed examination based on the following considerations: (1) In order to include representatives of all major fabric groups in my study, I endeavored to include examples in Group B of any figurine fabrics— such as marls—which were visible in the vitrines but did not appear in the relatively randomly-selected Group A sample. (2) Similarly, I also included in Group B a selection of figurines with certain technical features that were not represented in Group A, such as unusually thick limewash or certain colors of paint. These examples will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 . (3) Finally, since my goal was the creation of as complete a record as possible of the figurines’ fabric and manufacturing techniques, I showed preference for any figurines positioned in the vitrines in such a way that one could see their back as well as front sides
Obviously, it was possible to collect much more detailed information about Group A than Group B168 . However, certain fabric observations were still possible for Group B, such as: the Munsell color value for the fabric; the presence/absence of coarse inclusions (although fine inclusions were usually impossible to detect behind glass); and a general impression of the fabric group to which the object most likely belonged
Another variable to consider is the uncertain date of many of the figurines in the Cairo Museum (Dunand 1979: 18-31, with references) . Without recorded findspots for the majority of these artifacts169, scholars are forced to rely largely on stylistic dating170, which is notoriously difficult for terracotta figurines171 . Thus there is an “almost total lack of consensus concerning the chronological framework” (Torok 1995: 19) for Egyptian coroplastic studies. Older studies often identified the majority of the so-called “Fayum-style” terracottas as Roman-period172, but, as Torok correctly asserts, this preconception is “unfounded and misleading”173 . Excavations at Athribis and elsewhere have demonstrated that many long-lasting iconographic types do have origins in the Ptolemaic period174, roughly contemporary with the late-Hellenistic figurines from Delos. It may indeed be possible to assign approximate dates to a few figurine types, but in general, Perdrizet’s (1921: vii) reluctance to assign dates to most of the Fouquet Collection terracottas has proven prudent. For the purposes of fabric analysis, similar fabrics appear to have been used throughout the Greco-Roman period, and fabric usually does not indicate any more precise date within that range (Dunand 1979: 19) .
World History
