Engraved with Arabic ornament highlighted in black, Syrian, 1750-99

Ostrich egg carved with Arabic ornament. The engraved areas are filled in with black ink to create a contrast.

This egg was acquired together with 94-1889, which is now part of the Furniture and Woodwork collection. The two ostrich eggs were given one number, and entered the Museum on 24th Janunary 1889. They were bought for £2 (£1 each, as the Furniture Department registers specify the cost of 94-1889 as £1) from Miss Cutter, of 35 Great Russell Street, WC (a 'W Cutter' of the same address, presumably her brother, also appears in the Bethnal Green Museum registers). On 13th February 1889 one egg was "transferred to the Art Division", i.e. South Kensington Museum; it was entered into the Furniture Department the following day, and given its own Museum number.

Dr Anne Regourd of the University of Leeds suggested that 94-1889 and AP.11-1889 are so far unusual in her corpus as their decoration is engraved rather than painted.

A painted ostrich egg was found in the excavations of Quseir al-Qadim, on the Red Sea coast of southern Egypt. It can be dated by its stratigraphy to the Mamluk period (1250-1517), and more specifically to the 15th century. It is fragmentary, but covered with painted Arabic inscriptions. These are not Qur'anic, but all have something to do with death. The context of the find was a graveyard site, so it may have been an object which was buried with someone, or which decorated a tomb or mausoleum.

This is the theory of Professor Dionisius Agius of the University of Leeds who is publishing this find, with some other comparable pieces (such as a much smaller egg, perhaps from a chicken, in the British Museum which is also painted with Arabic inscriptions).

AP.11-1889