Tit (Isis knot) amulet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The tit symbol (pronounced teet) illustrates a knotted piece of cloth whose early meaning is unknown, but in the New Kingdom it was clearly associated with the goddess Isis, the great magician and wife of Osiris. By this time, the tit was also associated with blood of Isis. The tit sign was considered a potent symbol of protection in the afterlife and the Book of the Dead specifies that the tit be made of blood-red stone, like this example, and placed at the deceased's neck. Knots were widely used as amulets because the Egyptians believed they bound and released magic (for another amuletic knot see 27.3.398).

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