A Necklace of four strands of beads and amulets

A Necklace of four strands of beads and amulets

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This brightly colored set of necklaces belonging to a young girl are remarkable not only for their technically brilliant manufacture, the drilled stone beads being quite tiny. Mayet was only five when she was buried among the older female members of the King Mentuhotep II’s court in his funerary complex at Deir el Bahri. Although her burial was simple, her necklaces, including two others of gold and carnelian ball beads, are some of the finest jewelry that survives from this period and the signs of wear on the beads indicate Mayet, or perhaps another woman, wore them during their lifetime.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Necklace of four strands of beads and amuletsA Necklace of four strands of beads and amuletsA Necklace of four strands of beads and amuletsA Necklace of four strands of beads and amuletsA Necklace of four strands of beads and amulets

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.