Description: A polychrome faience lotus bud -- blue lines represent the enclosed petals, green represents the surrounding sepals of the bud, and yellow for the calyx. A hole at the base provides for the attachment of a stem in another material that would allow it to be attached to an architectural feature.
Collectors Marks: oval yellow paper sticker with number 661 written in ink; white rectangular printed paper sticker with number 1283.
Cultural Significance: Model lotus buds in faience and wood are known primarily from the reign of Amenhotep III through the Amarna period. Faience examples have been excavated at Malkata and Amarna and wooden buds were excavated at Malkata and Uronarti in Nubia. Based on pictoral evidence, it is suggested they formed decorative elements on columns, shrines, doorways, and baldachins.
Comparanda: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1988.339 & 28.1771; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 11.215.531 & 21.9.413; Petrie Museum UC1712

Notes:  For discussion of similar items see F. Friedman, Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience, catalogue #41 with bibliography and C. Ransom Williams, Wall Decorations of the Main Temple of the Sun at El 'Amarneh, Metropolitan Museum Studies, May 1930 Vol 2, No. 2 pp. 141-143.

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