Oldest-ever ancient Egyptian workshop discovered in Aswan

Nevine El-Arwef, Wednesday 25 Jul 2018

The turntable

An over 4,400-year-old pottery workshop has been discovered near Kom Ombo Temple in Aswan, Upper Egypt as maintenance work was being carried out to reduce the level of underground water beneath the temple.

The workshop, the oldest ancient Egyptian workshop ever discovered, dating back to the Fourth Dynasty (2,613 - 2,494 BC), was found in the area located between the Crocodile Museum and the Nile's shore.

The structure has semi-circular holes of different sizes and contains a collection of cylindrical stone blocks used to melt and mix clay.

A pottery manufacturing wheel and its limestone turntable were also discovered.

"The discovery is an important and rare one," Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online, adding that this is the oldest workshop ever found in the country.

Waziri explains that the discovery gives insight into the daily lives of ancient Egyptians as well as the development of pottery and industry throughout Egypt's different dynastic periods.

Waziri asserted that this is the first pottery manufacturing wheel to be found from the ancient Egyptian era, adding that several reliefs and paintings showing the development of pottery in ancient Egypt had been previously discovered.

Egyptologist Morslav Verner had discovered just the head of a pottery manufacturing wheel made of burned clay in a pottery workshop found at Queen Khentkawes II's temple in Abusir necropolis.