I am Khnum, your creator, My arms are around you, to steady your body, to safeguard your limbs. I bestow on you ores with precious stones since antiquity (existing) that were not worked before to build temples, rebuild ruins, sculpt chapels for his master. I am master of creation. I have created myself, the great ocean which came into being in past times, according to whose pleasure the Nile rises.
For I am the master who makes, I am he who makes himself exalted in Nun, who first came forth, Hapi who hurries at will; fashioner of everybody, guide of each man to their hour. I am Tenen, father of Gods, the great Shou living on the shore.(Famine Stele)
The need to store things led to the development of containers, first among them bags of fibre or leather, woven baskets and pottery. But clay lends itself to many other purposes: bricks, statuettes, funerary offerings, toys and games etc. Pottery, the moulding of form out of a formless mass and its becoming imperishable through firing, is the most miraculous kind of creation. Thus Khnum, the great potter, created man.
The exquisite artefacts made of gold, carved out of hard stone or formed from glass might make us forget that the Egyptians lived with clay and not the expensive alternatives found in royal tombs. They lived in it, drank from it, cooked in it, ate on it, carried liquids in it, played with it, and when they died, the only offerings of any permanence most could afford were made from it.
Size: 11.75"H |
