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For us, jewelry is adornment. It’s something you put on in the morning that maybe goes with your outfit,
but we’re not so keyed into jewelry and
its symbolism. For the ancient Egyptians, it was something that had a protective value.
This is a pendant of a necklace that belonged to a woman named Sithathoryunet.
We don’t really know very much about her. She lived
about 1880
B.C. She’s called the daughter of a king,
so we know that she was a princess. The women of the royal family
had a very important role in how the king’s afterlife would be formulated. This piece actually doesn’t have her name,
but on the top in the center is the name
of the pharaoh Senwosret II. She may have been the daughter of this king.
We have these very beautiful falcons, which represent the god Horus.
The king himself when he’s alive is the god Horus, and Horus is
sitting on these round signs, which
reflect the sun encircling the world. They’re a symbol of eternity, they’re a protective symbol.
Hanging from the cobra, these two
ankh signs are symbols of life.
At the bottom we have this little kneeling figure, the symbol for the word “million,” holding the symbol, “years.”
Around the elbow is a tadpole, which is the numerical symbol of a hundred thousand.
It’s a whole composition surrounding the name of the king
with protection and eternal life. This one little piece has
372 separate
inlays. And it’s about 4,000
years old. They didn’t have the kind of
jeweler’s tools that we have now. Everything
inlayed on the front is repeated on
the back in chased decoration.
And you have to imagine that nobody saw this
except the princess. This piece was
a magical symbol that had to be complete.
We’re used to seeing these Egyptian kings,
they’re very remote,
you see them in stone, and they’re big and imposing.
They’re not really accessible to you as human beings.
Of course you wonder, “What were these people
like?” There’s little
biographical data. So what we’re left with
is absolute shell of who she was, and then these things that she wore during her life.
You’re always grasping at these little things that somehow
make them real people.
