Gold and jewellery making played an important part in Egyptian culture, with the Egyptian era essentially dominated by gold. The enduring image of the Tutankhamun’s Death mask quantifies that superbly (above). The impact of such a bold use of metal makes the mask memorable, and solidifies the wide association with gold and metals, which is in turn reflected in Egyptian jewellery.
The Seven Metals of Antiquity
As you can see from the metallurgy timeline above, Gold and Copper were the first metals to be discovered and made up two of the Seven Metals of Antiquity (metals on which our civilisation is based). Whilst Gold was valued for its colour and resistance to tarnish, copper became widely used in weapon making due to its strength.
Early gold deposits were simply hammered together to form larger pieces of Ancient Egyptian jewellery, but copper was a little more troublesome and used to shatter when dropped. This problem led to the process of annealing being discovered which loosened up the cell structure of the metal making it more workable.
Ancient Egyptian Jewellery And Gods
Jewellery styles of the Egyptian Period were often based upon the widespread belief in a series of gods who ‘governed’ the kingdom. There were hundreds of different gods worshipped by the people, and these often changed and developed as times moved on and the Dynasties changed. But there are certain key figures which are essentially unchanging, most notably Atum-Ra, who was the sun god and creator of all other gods. Other gods remaining prominent in the history of Egyptian jewellery were Shu, (god of air) and Tefnut (god of moisture) and many more.
These gods represented the fundamental elements on which Egyptian life was based and were the perfect subjects for amulets (which protected the wearer) and talismans (to bring the wearer good luck), much like we wear today.
What did Egyptian jewellery look like?
The answer is strikingly similar to the designs of modern Egyptian jewellery, which is astounding considering the Egyptian jewellery working techniques available at the time.
The ring on the left is a stirrup shape signet ring which has been cast using the lost wax process. The hieroglyphics would have been used with hot wax, as a seal to stamp official documents and letters but also to adorn the finger of an important figure (priestly official). Signet rings were often designed with a swivelling bezel and regularly incorporated a scarab beetle as the central Egyptian motif. (In a nutshell, Scarabs represented the cycle of life).
The ring on the right is made of faience which is powdered quartz with a vitreous coating, usually blue-green in colour. Ancient Egyptian faience beads have the characteristics of clay and can be moulded, but they’re actually more like glass. The coloured faience in the centre of the ring was used to imitate Lapis and Carnelian in this example.
