Mortar. France, 15th century

Mortar. France, 15th century.
Egyptian porphyry.
The piece has been restored in a break but it is not visible.
Measurements: 16 x 21 x 21 cm.

Smooth-walled mortar entirely made of royal Egyptian porphyry, a prestigious material that embodied the power of emperors and rulers since Antiquity. The uniqueness of this material lies in its exceptional strength and durability. Its intrinsic qualities were perfectly suited to the message of power and authority, but also made it extremely difficult to work and carve.
From the end of the Roman Empire it represented a means of legitimizing and underlining the power of any pretender to the throne. Deep purple with white speckles, this durable stone was, according to Pliny's Naturalis Historia, discovered by the legionary Gaius Cominius in 18 CE at a place now called Mons Porphyrites (Porphyry Mountain), in the eastern desert of Egypt. The Romans gave the stone a name: "porphyry," which derives from the Latin word for purple, the color of nobility. Making objects from this hard stone was both a political and artistic statement. From the 5th century onwards, the quarries ceased to be exploited and Porphyrites was lost into oblivion. Thereafter, the only source of porphyry of this type used in Western Europe was the ruins of Ancient Rome, giving the new works created a deep spiritual connection to Antiquity.
In ancient recipe books there are a large number of recipes based on the use of the mortar, a tool that, although it is hardly used today, was so varied in its use in the past that every kitchen had a wide variety of them, from the larger ones for pounding meats and vegetables to the smaller ones for grinding spices. Already in antiquity there were large mortars, made of bronze to grind and mix marble or lime, which were used to make construction binders or plasters, such as stucco. The Roman poet Juvenal named it in articles for the preparation of drugs, reflecting the early use of this instrument in apothecaries. The antiquity of mortars is also well documented in some works of ancient literature, such as the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, which dates from 1550 BC and is considered one of the oldest documents on medicine in Ancient Egypt. It is also mentioned in the Old Testament. Good mortars must be heavy or made of strong materials to withstand prolonged pounding and thus reduce the substances to powder. The mortar cannot be brittle as it would break during the pulverizing operation. The material must also be cohesive so that its surface does not wear away and mix with the ingredients.