Jewelry Elements for a Broad Collar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These faience necklace elements were excavated at Amarna. The beads include palm fronds (green); lotus petals (white); dates (green, blue, and red); bunches of grapes (dark blue); cornflowers (green, blue, and white); persea fruit (yellow); and dom-palm fruit (red). The individual beads were made in molds and small ring beads were attached later to allow stringing. The elements shown here were intended for a collar necklace, so rings were attached at top and bottom so that the beads could interlock two strings. The triangular necklace terminal in the shape of a lotus blossom was pierced with holes for the necklace threads before it was fired. These elements come from houses in the North Suburb of Amarna where there were areas with a high density of faience molds and pendant suggesting production took place in the area.

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