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Clark - Costume Jewelry in Egypt in The XVIII Dynasty - BMMA-NS-8 - 1950
Clark - Costume Jewelry in Egypt in The XVIII Dynasty - BMMA-NS-8 - 1950
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COSTUME JEWELRY IN EGYPT
IN THE XVIII DYNASTY
BY CHARLOTTE R. CLARK
Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art
The Egyptian lady of leisure in 1400 B.C. would and the stringing of the various elements to-
not have regarded the basic black dress relieved gether, the patience of the artisans was prob-
only by plain gold jewelry, which is fashion- ably tried very frequently. Of the scenes in
able today, as an elegant costume. Her clothing Egyptian tombs representing craftsmen at work
was made of fine white linen, and she adorned there is only one which can be definitely iden-
herself with colored jewelry. In painted scenes tified as faience-making; but the story is per-
on the walls of Theban tombs of the period haps better told by the actual remains from
Egyptians are represented in the costumes in glaze factories which were found by the Mu-
which they judged themselves most becomingly seum's Expedition in its excavations at Lisht
attired, and both women and men wear broad and Thebes. On the former site were found
collars, necklaces, armlets, bracelets, and an- pats of the core paste, now dry and hard of
klets (see the lower illustration on the opposite course but showing clearly the finger marks of
page). From surviving examples of these orna- the men who had shaped them; and from the
ments we know that while some were made of palace of Amun-hotp6 III at Thebes came hun-
semiprecious stones, such as carnelian, lapis dreds of bright-colored faience pendants, amu-
lazuli, green feldspar, and amethyst, many lets, and other ornaments and the little red
more were of faience beadwork in colors imi- pottery molds in which the paste had been
tating those stones. pressed to form them. When shaped, the paste
The craftsmen who were responsible for
making the faience jewelry must have encoun- ABOVE: A craftsman stringing a broad collar of
tered many problems. From the initial mixing stone beads which his companion is drilling. A
of the quartz paste which formed the core of scene in the tomb of Rekh-mi-Re' at Thebes.
all Egyptian faience to the firing of the glaze From a colored facsimile by Nina M. Davies
154
was removed from the molds, dipped in glaze
of the desired color, and fired. Several molds
have the paste still in them, mute evidence that .. \----
it was not always easy to get the object out
whole; the molds were of course immediately
discarded. The pottery crucibles in which the
ingredients of the glaze, a true glass, were /1
melted were of a size which would permit the -- _ a
smaller objects to be dipped. /
Broad collars, composed of rows of beads and
pendants, required innumerable individual /\
units: separate beads molded over straws which
would burn out when the glaze was fired, leav- /SW,
ing the necessary stringing hole, and pendants
with minute ring beads attached to each end
before glazing for joining the concentric rows . |f /
together. Just as nowadays when such ancient
beads have to be restrung great care is neces- / ./_ .
sary to avoid breaking off the tiny ring beads,
so in ancient times the utmost delicacy in the
handling of the fragile faience elements was A craftsman in the royal workshop laying out a
collar for stringing. A scene in the tomb of Neb-
Amun and Ipuky. N. de Garis Davies, "The
Tomb of Two Sculptors at Thebes," pl. xI
^?^
?S?= srequired of the men stringing the collars (see
the illustration above).
In the tomb of Rekh-mi-Rec at Thebes we
\?t-^RX^~ ^7 can see a man stringing up a broad collar, in
this case one made of stone beads which his
J /^^e
^= ^^V-^~ Wcompanion = 3 is busy drilling with his bow drill
(see the illustration on the opposite page). It is
interesting to note that there is no indication
- ,1^ - ?of a needle of any sort, and it is assumed that
the linen thread employed was waxed. Bees-
~
//f r ( t ^ C the only wax used in ancient Egypt,
I _wax,
- ^\|_ m \\- would stiffen the thread sufficiently to allow it
to pass easily through most of the beads, but
_\~/// \\ _ the task of stringing a broad collar in that way
must have been long and laborious. To re-
- l\\, M \ \ - string one with the fine, flexible bead-stringing
needles of steel we have today is in itself not
l-~ } t
easy.
|MT llpll I ) The arrangement of the elements making up
the broad collars differed in the various peri-
A scene in the tomb of Neb-Amun and Ipuky ods. A collar recently acquired by the Museum
at Thebes (about 1400 B.C.), showing typical and restrung there is an example, dating to the
costumes with jewelry. From a line drawing by late Eighteenth Dynasty, which is almost an
Lindsley F. Hall exact replica of an earlier type (see the illus-
155
m!
:
156