<em>Single Strand Necklace with Disk Beads</em>, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Faience, Approximate length: 39 7/16 in. (100.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 15.502. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.15.502_NegL1008_33_print_bw.jpg)

Single Strand Necklace with Disk Beads, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Faience, Approximate length: 39 7/16 in. (100.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 15.502. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.15.502_NegL1008_33_print_bw.jpg)

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These Egyptian necklaces are beautiful, but I have a hard time believing the string holding the heads together held up this long. Are they in their original order or have they been reassembled?

How sharply observed! You are correct; in most modern displays of ancient jewelry that was strung on non-metal strings, the beads have been rethreaded on modern materials. Can you think of any issues curators would have to address in doing so?

Well, I imagine most people just assume the necklaces are in their original form, so there's certainly a burden of accuracy that rests on their shoulders. This jewelry was also created by skilled artisans so I imagine there's plenty of difficulty in just reassembling the pieces. How do curators decide the patterns in which they arrange the beads?

Luckily, sometimes the archaeological context is so well preserved that the pattern of the beads can be seen even when the thread connecting them had deteriorated. But quite often, a hypothetical decision has to be made! Here, the number of individual beads can be very helpful in determining the pattern, using other known documented examples of that type of jewelry as comparisons.

This necklace is so beautiful! What is faience?

Faience is a man-made material made from a paste of copper, quartz, lime, and other materials that are fired like ceramics. It was an affordable alternative to the more precious lapis lazuli. The blue color has symbolic meaning as well, it was connected to the Nile, which brings life-giving water to the Egypt.

Cool! So interesting!

Tell me more.

Theses lovely pieces would have served as jewelry much like we were today. Beaded necklaces of faience were particularly popular.

Using faience was an affordable alternative to the more precious lapis lazuli. The blue color has symbolic meaning as well! It was connected to the Nile, whose annual floods made life in the desert possible!

Single Strand Necklace with Disk Beads

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

On View: Egyptian Orientation Gallery, 3rd Floor

Necklaces

Most ancient Egyptians owned at least one necklace.

The simplest examples were made of tiny beads of shell, bone, faience, metal, or glazed steatite. More complex versions had beads in the form of amulets, including uraeus-cobras, wedjat-eyes (the eye of the falcon-god Horus, symbolizing wholeness), scarabs (charms in the form of beetles), or images of gods such as Hathor. Individual beads as well as complete necklaces had significance. Beads reproducing fruits or flowers, such as the examples in this case, were believed to enhance fertility. Military officers presented fly necklaces to valiant soldiers to acknowledge their tenacity in battle.

MEDIUM Faience

Place Excavated: Balabish, Egypt

DATES ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E.

DYNASTY Dynasty 18 to Dynasty 19

PERIOD New Kingdom

DIMENSIONS Approximate length: 39 7/16 in. (100.2 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 15.502

CREDIT LINE Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Single strand necklace composed entirely of small disk-shape beads in various shades of blue faience. Single, very small tubular bead, blue glaze at one end. Condition: Good. A few beads have lost their glaze.

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Egyptian Orientation Gallery, 3rd Floor

CAPTION Single Strand Necklace with Disk Beads, ca. 1539–1190 B.C.E. Faience, Approximate length: 39 7/16 in. (100.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 15.502. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.15.502_NegL1008_33_print_bw.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.15.502_NegL1008_33_print_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2013

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

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