times as big as the Abydos offering cones. The conical storage jars from the Memphite
region also always have distinct vertical grooves from potter’s fingers on both interior
and exterior surfaces, but the conical vessels from the other sites are lacking these vertical
grooves. This type of vessels has come to be called “meat jars” in recent publications
because in some instances they either contained actual meat or lumps of mud imitating
. [Slide 26] In fact, I wonder if these vessels themselves are meant to look like
hunches of meat, such as the legs of cow that are often represented being offered to the
deceased on Middle Kingdom stelae. None of the Abydos cones were found with either
real or symbolic meat in them. Traces of mud have been observed on the exterior surface
of these conical containers from the Lower Egyptian sites. While it is possible that the
mud derives clay stoppers, as has been suggested
, but it seems more likely that it
derives from the content of “meat-mud”, since not a single example of corresponding
stoppers have been reported even from el-Lisht, where the sherds of these conical vessels
were found in hundreds
[Slide 27] To summarize the comparison, there are several groups of vessels that
look similar to the 12
th
Dynasty offering cones from Abydos, but none of the comparanda
is exactly the same as those from North Abydos. Are these groups of pottery related to
each other in anyway? Abydos was the only site where the corresponding clay stoppers
have been found and recorded. Does the presence of clay stoppers mark a fundamental
difference in function between the Abydene examples and the others? Or is this merely
due to the chance of survival or lack of interest in them on part of the archaeologists?
Aside from the issue of clay stoppers, the offering vessels from the First
Intermediate Period cemetery of Dendera seem to present the closest parallel although
39
Yoshimura, Kawai, and Kashiwagi, p. 388.
40
Do. Arnold, p. 53
41
Di. Arnold, fig. 7.
11
Convention