The poorer folk sometimes buried miniature table and kitchen services with their dead, as being less costly than full-sized vessels.  The surface is seldom glazed, seldom smooth and lustrous; but is ordinarily covered with a coat of whitish, unbaked paint, which scales off at a touch.  Upon this surface there is neither incised design, nor ornament in relief, nor any kind of inscription, but merely some four or five parallel lines in red, black, or yellow, round the neck.

[Illustration:  Fig. 220.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 221.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 222.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 223.]

The pottery of the earliest Theban dynasties which I have collected at El Khozam and Gebeleyn is more carefully wrought than the pottery of the Memphite period.  It may be classified under two heads.  The first comprises plain, smooth-bodied vases, black below and dark red above.  On examining this ware where broken, we see that the colour was mixed with the clay during the kneading, and that the two zones were separately prepared, roughly joined, and then uniformly glazed.  The second class comprises vases of various and sometimes eccentric forms, moulded of red or tawny clay.  Some are large cylinders closed at one end; others are flat; others oblong and boat-shaped; others, like cruets, joined together two and two, yet with no channel of communication[56] (fig. 220).  The ornamentation is carried over the whole surface, and generally consists of straight parallel lines, cross lines, zigzags, dotted lines, or small crosses and lines in geometrical combination; all these patterns being in white when the ground is red, or in reddish brown when the ground is yellow or whitish.  Now and then we find figures of men and animals interspersed among the geometrical combinations.  The drawing is rude, almost childish; and it is difficult to tell whether the subjects represent herds of antelopes or scenes of gazelle-hunting.  The craftsmen who produced these rude attempts were nevertheless contemporary with the artists who decorated the rock-cut tombs at Beni Hasan.  As regards the period of Egypt’s great military conquests, the Theban tombs of that age have supplied objects enough to stock a museum of pottery; but unfortunately the types are very uninteresting.  To begin with, we find hand-made sepulchral statuettes modelled in summary fashion from an oblong lump of clay.  A pinch of the craftsman’s fingers brought out the nose; two tiny knobs and two little stumps, separately modelled and stuck on, represented the eyes and arms.  The better sort of figures were pressed in moulds of baked clay, of which several specimens have been found.  They were generally moulded in one piece; then lightly touched up; then baked; and lastly, on coming out of the oven, were painted red, yellow, or white, and inscribed with the pen.  Some are of very good style, and almost equal those made in limestone.  The ushabtiu of the scribe Hori, and those of the priest Horuta