A collection of Prime Cultural Heritage artefacts consisting of Egyptian late Middle Kingdom figurines (c. 1850–1700 BCE), made of unfired clay and covered in inscriptions, is kept at the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) in Brussels, Belgium. Several of these hieratic inscriptions curse enemies of the Egyptian state, including Canaanite, Nubian and Libyan entities; thus providing invaluable information for Middle Bronze topography in ancient Near Eastern studies. What makes the extensive Brussels group even more exceptional, is the fact that these figurines were discovered in a closed archaeological context in Saqqara, Lower Egypt. Defining and classifying clay and ancient ceramic provenance groups in Egypt is highly complex due to variability in Nile and marl clay deposits. Chemical characterization of this figurine assemblage (n = 91) allows to effectively study the potential direct use of clays in the vicinity of Saqqara and characterize the nature of the raw materials used. Additionally, it aims to assess the validity of portable XRF spectrometry for this type of materials and its provenance resolution. Analyses show that very similar clays were used to produce the different morphological types of figurines in the assemblage. The chemical profile indicates the use of a mixed source at Saqqara rather than pure marl or Nile clays, which are common for ancient pottery production.

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The Egyptian collection of the RMAH comprises about one hundred execration figurines made of unbaked clay, bearing curses written in hieratic script (a cursive writing system related to hieroglyphs) and dating to the Middle Kingdom (c. 1850 BC). These represent captured (foreign) enemies and were buried ritually in order to symbolically neutralise foreign and domestic enemies and general threats. Nearly 90 years after their discovery, the red and black pigments used to inscribe these four millennia old objects are now faded or damaged. The Execration texts on these figurines are regarded as one of the most renowned collections of written sources for ancient Near Eastern studies, Egyptian history and Biblical studies for the early 2nd millennium BCE. When it comes to documenting every characteristic of an object in a highly detailed way, clay artefacts inscribed with ink and other pigments, such as the aforementioned figurines, pose a particular challenge. These three-dimensional media with curved surfaces hold traces of writing that, in some cases, have faded or have disappeared completely. The study of these objects is generally hampered by their poor state of conservation, any handling can result in a considerable loss of material (and therefore also valuable information). The EES project aimed to develop new imaging techniques (using interactive 2D, 3D and multispectral images) that can improve the legibility of faded inscriptions and enhance the decorations on clay objects. Combining 3D digitisation and multispectral imaging in a user-friendly and transportable system, that is also manageable by curators, conservators, researchers and other stakeholders in the museum, is a truly pioneering project. It must facilitate the management of recorded collections and offer numerous possibilities for historical and art-technical studies on these objects, while the future handling is limited to a minimum, thus ensuring their sustainability.@en