Menit amulet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The menat is a term for the counterweight of a menat necklace, a heavy set of beads with counterweight sacred to great female goddesses in particular who were appeased by the sound of the shaken beads. The counterweight served as a symbol of the whole elaborate necklace. The menat remained an important magical amulet throughout Egyptian history, serving to propititate the great goddesses and evoke their powerful protection.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art