Also known as tjehenet, "Egyptian" faience is a quartz-based ceramic invented by [[Mesopotamia]] and mastered by [[Egypt]]. It's a glassy substance made by grinding quartz (sand) with copper and some other stuff, then heating up and shaping it. Scholars think they did it to make knockoff gemstones like turquoise (it could be glazed in basically any color). The Egyptians used it to make a bunch of stuff, including jewelry, games, furniture and dinnerware. > The earliest evidence of a faience workshop has been unearthed at Abydos and dated to 5500 BCE. The workshop consists of a number of circular pits, clearly the remains of kilns, with a lining of brick and all of them fire-marked. Layers of ancient ash in the pits are evidence of continuous use over many years. Small clay balls were also discovered and it is thought that they may have been used as the surface on which faience beads were fired in the kilns. <cite>via Josha J. Mark at <a href="https://member.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Faience/">ancient.eu</a></cite>