From elaborate ornamental jewelry to everyday household items, the artisan of ancient Egypt was skilled in the crafting of objects of beauty and function. Archaeological excavation of Egypt has uncovered an abundance of everyday artifacts once belonging to the upper class society of ancient times. Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife called for the dead to be buried with those items that they would need for day to day living in the next world. Tombs have been therefore discovered packed with pottery, glassware, beaded jewelry, and more. Fine inlay and metalwork characterized funerary objects such as pendants and pharaohs’ masks. These techniques are also found in smaller, more ordinary objects like lamps, vases, and candleholders.

The ancients had a love for rich pure colors, and ascribed meaning to these colors – yellow was associated with the sun and the divine, red and dark orange with power and vitality, blue and green with life, water, and the Nile. Precious gold metal symbolized the sun for the ancients, and was treasured for its brilliant yellow hue and shine. Also, because gold does not tarnish, it was also considered a metaphor for eternal life. Gold mineral was often combined with colored accents in the form of semi-precious stone or enamel. The ancients had a love for rich pure colors, and ascribed meaning to these colors – yellow was associated with the sun and the divine, red and dark orange with power and vitality, blue and green with life, water, and the Nile.

One of the more splendid techniques used by the ancient artisans is known as faience. Ceramic, but not clay-based, faience is instead composed primarily of quartz, the silica material of which glass is made. The beauty of Egyptian faience is in the glaze, typically blue-green, although it may be found in other colors as well. The glowing, seemingly translucent blue of the glaze was achieved by adding copper as a pigment to finely ground quartz. Faience was used for small decorative items, sculptures, bowls, beads, and wall tiles. Famous examples of ancient Egyptian faience include a small hippopotamus, named William in the Cairo museum and an equally charming hedgehog, also in the Cairo museum.

Egyptian art did not die out with the Pharaohs. In the early middle-ages, a group of slaves in the service of the Cairene sultans took it in mind to overthrow their masters. From the start of their reign, the Mamluks set about commissioning countless thousands of artworks, from carpets and candleholders to mosques and miniature paintings. The quality of design and workmanship demonstrated over this 250 span constitute nothing short of a Renaissance of Islamic Art. As during the 150 year span in Italy referred to by the same title, trade and cultural activity flourished under the Mamluks.

Mamluk rugs are today much sought after collectors items. Described by some as jeweled carpets, these gorgeous textiles have all the subdued color of aged tile mosaics. Manifesting influence from the Islamic world, Mamluk designs remain nevertheless unique in time, and further, quite unlike any other carpet designs in the Islamic world. The tremendous power of these rugs lies with the seemingly free yet subtle use of color, and this aspect in conjunction with patterns that are graphic yet for the most part formal. Like an impressionist painting where content and color are in splendid harmony creating an intriguing vibration which draws the eye into the landscape, the Mamluk carpet possesses peculiar but fascinating movement.

Equally prized by collectors the world over are Mamluk metalworks. An art at which Mamluk craftsmen excelled, the Mamluk rulers regularly commissioned pieces for donation to mosques as well as for various ceremonies and events. Amongst these were brass inlaid with silver and gold, gold inlaid with silver, door keys, boxes, perfume bottles, candlesticks, and lamps.