COSMETIC PALETTE

The 'Cosmetic palettes' are archaeological artefacts originally used for grinding ingredients for cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th millennium BCE appear to have lost this function and become merely commemorative and ornamental. They were generally made of soft stone such as slate or mudstone. Many of the palettes were found at Hierakonpolis, a centre of power in pre-dynastic Upper Egypt. They disappear from tomb asseblages after the unification of the country.
Notable palettes are:

★ The Narmer Palette which displays the king of the South victorious over what has been interpreted as Northerners.

★ The Dogs Palette displaying canines, giraffes and other quadrupeds

★ The Battlefield Palette

★ The Bulls Palette showing a bull representing the king goring his enemies

★ The Hunters Palette
Even undecorated palettes were often given pleasing shapes, such as the Zoomorphic palettes.
The Near East stone palettes are from Canaan ^[1], Bactria and Gandhara.

Contents

References

See also

External Links

References

★ David Wengrow, ''The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in North East Africa'',
Cambridge University Press 2006

★ Erik Hornung, ''Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: the one and the many'', Cornell University Press 1982
1. ''Festschrift, Rëuben R. Hecht'', Korén Publishers 1979

See also

★ Narmer Palette

★ Stone palette

External Links

★ Corpus of Egyptian Late Predynastic Palettes by Francesco Raffaele