Ancient faience-beaded necklace

Description:	Ancient Egyptians adorned themselves with beautiful jewelry. Often, it included protective amulets, worn during life and during ones journey into the afterlife. An ordinary Egyptian woman probably would have worn this faience, glazed earthenware, beaded necklace with jackal amulets for magical protection and possibly for worship of the jackal-headed god Anubis (the god who supervised the embalming and burial of the deceased, protected spirits of the dead and guided them to the underworld). Anubis was worshipped throughout Egypt at many different temples dedicated exclusively to him. He was associated with and depicted as part jackal most likely because early Egyptians noticed jackals prowling about graves, establishing a link between jackals and the dead. The beads of this necklace were made out of faience, an early form of glass used by ancient Egyptians. It was first used in Predynastic times at least 5,000 years ago. The body of faience was made from materials common to Egypt: ground quartz (or crushed quartz pebbles), flint, soda, lime and ground copper. Once mixed, the material was molded or hand-modeled into a desired shape and fired in a kiln until fused. The addition of different metals and their oxides created varying hues of the typical blue-green glaze, a color that had special meaning to Egyptians. Called tjehnet by Ancient Egyptians, meaning brilliant or scintillating, faience was thought to be filled with the light of the sun, moon, and stars and symbolized rebirth. It was believed that the small blue-green objects helped to impart life to the dead and to promote their rebirth for eternity in the afterlife. Faience shabtis (funerary figurines), stelae (funerary markers), mummy netting, amulets and other grave goods were regularly placed in mummy tombs.
Source:	http://www.digitalindy.org/cdm/ref/collection/tcm/id/603
Collection:	The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
Rights:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/;
Copyright:	Creative Commons (CC By-SA 3.0);
Geography:	Egypt
Subjects:	Egypt--Civilization -- To 332 B.C. Jewelry, Ancient -- Egypt Amulets

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