Made in Ancient Egypt
3 October 2025 – 12 April 2026
4000-year-old ancient Egyptian handprint discovered
The Fitzwilliam Museum's extraordinary find uncovered as part of upcoming exhibition
A 4,000-year-old handprint has been discovered on an ancient Egyptian tomb, in a discovery that gives a rare glimpse of a human touch from the distant past.
The print was found on the base of a clay 'soul house' - a model dwelling often used in burials - by researchers at Cambridge University's Fitzwilliam Museum during preparations for its upcoming exhibition, Made in Ancient Egypt, opening 3 October 2025.
Soul houses, often shaped like buildings with an open courtyard, were often placed in tombs to hold food offerings such as bread, lettuce and ox heads. They may have been served as both symbolic offering trays and a resting place for the soul of the deceased.
The soul house, which dates to around 2055–1650 BCE, underwent extensive examinations at the Museum which shed new light on how it was made 4,000 years ago.
The potter who made this example, pictured, first created a framework of wooden sticks and then coated it with clay to make a building with two storeys supported by pillars. Staircases were formed by simply pinching the wet clay. During firing the wooden framework burnt away, leaving empty spaces in their place.
The handprint found underneath is likely to have been made when someone, perhaps the potter, moved the house out of the workshop to dry before firing in a kiln.
"We've spotted traces of fingerprints left in wet varnish or on a coffin in the decoration, but it is rare and exciting to find a complete handprint underneath this soul house. This was left by the maker who touched it before the clay dried.
I have never seen such a complete handprint on an Egyptian object before. You can just imagine the person who made this, picking it up to move it out of the workshop to dry before firing.
This takes you directly to the moment when the object was made, and to the person who made it, which is the focus of our exhibition
Detail of the fingers from the maker’s handprint on the underside of the ‘soul house’, circa 2055–1650 BCE, clay
Detail of the fingers from the maker’s handprint on the underside of the ‘soul house’, circa 2055–1650 BCE, clay
Ceramics were widely used in ancient Egypt, mostly as functional objects but occasionally as decorative pieces. This is apparent from the vast amounts of pottery that have survived.
From the earliest times, providing the dead with nourishment was important, and pottery containing food and drink became a common feature of burials for people of all ages.
Unlike many other ancient Egyptian crafts, relatively few details of potters at work survive which makes the discovery of a complete handprint even more important. The ready availability and generally low value of pottery, as well as the fact that potters worked with clay, may have affected their status.
Clay was a commonly found material, either deposited by the Nile as silt, or as shale - a stone that occurred under or between the layers of limestone rock in the desert. The shale would be processed to make a clay known as marl by soaking it in water before kneading by hand or underfoot.
Various items of food laid out as offerings in the open space at the front of the house include round and triangular loaves of bread, a lettuce and an ox’s head. ‘Soul house’, 2055–1650 BCE, clay.
Various items of food laid out as offerings in the open space at the front of the house include round and triangular loaves of bread, a lettuce and an ox’s head. ‘Soul house’, 2055–1650 BCE, clay.
A staircase and hollow pillar. Staircases were formed by simply pinching the clay, ‘Soul house’, 2055–1650 BCE, clay.
A staircase and hollow pillar. Staircases were formed by simply pinching the clay, ‘Soul house’, 2055–1650 BCE, clay.
The lives and histories of Egyptian rulers have received a great deal of attention but the makers of the artefacts themselves are often overlooked. Made in Ancient Egypt will show who those people were, how they thought of themselves and what other Egyptians thought of them.
Tomb illustrations in the exhibition will bring to life the makers at work – written documents like Ostraca show everyday activities like orders, receipts and delivery notes; unfinished objects reveal working methods that we recognise today, including changes to designs and mistakes that were corrected or covered up.
'Made in Ancient Egypt' will combine these with the results of scientific analyses, to help create a vivid picture of these workers as individuals, while monuments and records like stela, reveal how they wanted to represent themselves.
The soul house will be on display in The Fitzwilliam Museum's upcoming exhibition 'Made in Ancient Egypt', opening on 3 October and showcasing for the first time how Egyptian people created the iconography that defined a civilisation.
Tickets for the exhibition go on sale:
10am on Tuesday 29 July
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Date: 28 July 2025
Story: Jessica Keating and Emma Shaw
Photography: © The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
