An Ancient Egyptian Cartonnage Broad Collar: Technical Examination of Pigments and Binding Media

Examination of some pigments, grounds and media from Egyptian cartonnage fragments in the Petrie Museum, University College London

“…Mixed binding media was identified in UC79374-A and UC79384 -most likely in the form of paint layers containing egg white and plant gum, over fine grounds of calcite and animal glue, although an unambiguous attribution of the different media to the two different layers was not possible. Mixed media has previously been reported in Egyptian art, for example by Palet and Porta (1990) and Scott et al (2004), and since the analytical tools required to detect mixed media are being increasingly employed, more examples are likely to be reported. Although both egg white and animal glue were identified in the studied objects, identification of the animal species from which the materials derive was not possible, due to the antibodies employed being non-species specific.…”

“…The technology of the materials used in the fabrication of ancient Egyptian cartonnage is still not fully investigated. Recent research (Daniels, 2007;Scott et al, 2003Scott et al, , 2004 has revealed the use of a number of organometallic copper green pigments in particular, which constitute new discoveries in Egyptian art. Some important questions are: when did these pigments come into use?…”

“…This is not necessarily the case for green pigments, where there are a number of problems relating to their characterization, some of which have been described by Scott (in press). In summary, these difficulties relate to the subtleties of pigment characterization, use of organometallic compounds of copper, such as copper-proteinate, copper-carbohydrate and copper-wax pigments (Scott, 2002;Scott et al, 2003Scott et al, , 2004Daniels, 2007), alteration of the original green pigment to another green-coloured product, and alteration of blue pigments, such as Egyptian blue, to a degraded green colour (Lee and Quirke, 2000;Scott, in press;Schiegl et al, 1989Schiegl et al, , 1992.…”

A Study of Biodeterioration and Chromatic Alterations of Painted and Gilded Mummy Cartonnage at the Saqqara Museum Storeroom, Egypt

“…The pigments and binders of ancient Egyptian artefacts have been studied; for example, some pigments, grounds and media from Egyptian cartonnage fragments had been documented (Scott et al . , , ). The employed pigment colours for cartonnage [red (cinnabar or hematite), yellow (orpiment or goethite), blue (Egyptian blue), white (lead), black (charcoal black), green (Egyptian green or malachite—organic copper carbohydrate or proteinate green), gold etc.]…”

“…Previously, it has been suggested that alterations of Egyptian blue to a degraded green colour are related to the incorporation of organometallic compounds of copper, such as copper–proteinate, copper–carbohydrate and copper–wax pigments (Lee and Quirke ; Scott et al . , ; Daniels ). Egyptian green may degrade to form another green‐coloured compound comprising basic copper chloride (Schiegl et al .…”