String of Beads with Feline-head Amulets

String of Beads with Feline-head Amulets

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The use of feline's-head ornaments in jewelry is well known from the Twelfth Dynasty (ca. 1981-1802 B.C.) and continues in the early Eighteenth Dynasty. It is difficult to identify the type of cat that the Egyptians had in mind, although most seem to be leopards, an animal that, in the Middle Kingdom, has apotropaic properties. For a feline-head ring in the collection see 26.7.773.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

String of Beads with Feline-head AmuletsString of Beads with Feline-head AmuletsString of Beads with Feline-head AmuletsString of Beads with Feline-head AmuletsString of Beads with Feline-head 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.