Egyptian Paste, Part 1

These dried Egyptian Paste beads are slowly developing their
effloresced “scum” layer. Once enough has formed they will be kiln fired.

This is Part 1 of my series of blog posts about Egyptian Paste.

Egyptian Paste, also known as Egyptian Faience or Fayence, has been described as “the first high-tech ceramic”. It is a self-glazing ceramic body, which means that the glaze material/components are already included in the clay body, so there's no need for a glaze layer/coating, instead it slowly moves to the surface and develops. It is unlike ceramic clay which requires a bisque firing then a glaze layer to be painted/poured/dipped before being glazed fired to develop a glossy or matte surface.

I am forming a bead from
moist Egyptian Paste.

It is not like conventional, clay-based ceramics, the ingredients of Egyptian Paste is a mixture of silica, soda, and lime which react together during the kiln firing to create a new medium, which ends up being very different in nature to the ingredients individually. The Egyptians have referred to it as tjehenet, “that which is brilliant or scintillating”, because of how it reflects light once fired and reminded them of the semi-precious stones they admire most.

On the surface of the object an effloresced “scum” layer develops as it dries and this forms the colored glaze once it is fired due to being fused together.

The packaging has the instruction
of the first mixture we purchase
from our Pennsic Instructor.

Silica makes up the bulk of the dry ingredients, but there isn't enough soda and lime to completely melt the silica at the temperatures the dried paste is fired at, instead they react with the silica to form a little bit of glass to bind the silica grains.

Hands-On Projects
There are a wide variety of recipes and firing directions for Egyptian Paste. We started off by trying a mixture that we purchased from our Pennsic Instructor, we do not know the exact ingredients, the firing instructions are on the back of the packaging (see 3rd photo; from the "Getting Started" Facebook Photo Album).

After we made and used up this mixture we looked online for a recipe and ordered the needed ingredients which arrived very quickly. I mixed 1.185 kilograms (1185 grams) or 2.612 pounds of the dry base fore Egyptian Paste that it the plain color. I divided it into 11 batches of 100 grams each of the basic dry ingredients and then added different amounts of colorant to each. The remaining amount, just under 85 grams, will remain uncolored for plain beads and to experiment with. (see 4th photo; from the "Group Project" Facebook Photo Album).

Our group project day making beads
from the 2nd recipe that we tried.

Distilled water still needs to be added to each mini pouch of dry ingredients and kneaded well to form into balls of paste that are a little 'clay' like. The ingredients were purchased from The Ceramic Shop]


For more information and a look at my photo tutorials please visit:

Getting Started: Egyptian Paste (a.k.a. Egyptian Faience)

Group Project: Egyptian Paste (a.k.a. Egyptian Faience)