Mosaic Cube Tower XL

Mosaic Cube Tower XL

This is the biggest mosaic lamp we make. A tall cube tower built from small tiles of Egyptian alabaster, each one cut by hand and set in place. Unlit it reads as a pale, slightly chalky column. Switch it on and the whole thing turns amber.

The glow is the point. The stone is translucent, so light passes through each tile rather than bouncing off it, and the banding shows up as darker lines you did not see a minute ago. No two tiles are quite the same, some milkier, some closer to honey, so the tower lights unevenly in a way that a single carved wall cannot.

It is a lot of stone. Expect weight.

The stone

What the trade sells under that name is calcite, not gypsum. Geologically it is a banded travertine, laid down layer by layer as water moved through limestone caves. Mohs hardness sits around 3, soft enough to work with hand tools and a good deal harder than the gypsum alabaster sold elsewhere. Every tile carries that horizontal banding. No two blocks match, so colour, veining and translucency will differ from the photograph, sometimes noticeably.

Where it comes from

The tiles are cut and the tower assembled in Luxor, Upper Egypt. Most of the workshops sit on the west bank of the Nile, near the tombs the stone was originally quarried for. The stone has been quarried in Egypt since antiquity, from sites in the region around Luxor and in Middle Egypt, among them Hatnub, Wadi Gerrawi and Wadi el-Assiuti, several of which were worked as far back as the Predynastic period.

We hold stock in Amsterdam and post from there. Nothing travels from Egypt to reach you. Inside the EU that means days rather than weeks, and no customs charge on arrival.

Specifications

• Material: Egyptian alabaster (calcite, banded travertine)
• Construction: hand-cut tiles, set by hand. Nothing cast or moulded.
• Size: XL, the largest single mosaic lamp in the range
• Made in: Luxor, Egypt
• Dispatched from: Amsterdam
• Care: wipe with a soft dry cloth. Keep away from standing water. No acidic or abrasive cleaners; the stone is calcium based and acid etches it.
• Bulb: E27 fitting. Bulb not included.