Late Dynastic Egyptian Faience Bead Strands - Six Restrung Necklaces

North Africa, Egypt, Late Dynastic Period. A cascade of six strands gathers hundreds of disc-shaped faience beads in muted greens, ochres, dusky blues, and terracotta reds, their once-vivid glaze softened by millennia in Egyptian soil. Each tiny ring was formed from quartz paste and self-glazing, then fired to a glassy surface, a technique the Egyptians prized for its evocation of regeneration and the radiant flesh of the gods. Such mass-produced beads adorned the living and shrouded the dead, sewn into bead-net mantles, strung as collars, or layered as protective amulets. Here the ancient beads have been restrung onto six modern threads, awaiting clasps to render them wearable once more, a wardrobe spanning the centuries. The chromatic range, from pale celadon to russet, speaks to the varied mineral colorants and the gentle weathering of the original blue-green faience. Egyptian faience, the world's first high-tech ceramic, predates glass and held deep symbolic weight: its characteristic blue-green hue, called "tjehenet" (that which gleams), was associated with the Nile, fertility, and rebirth. Disc beads like these were produced in vast quantities during the Late Dynastic Period, particularly for funerary bead-nets draped over mummies and for broad collars worn in life and death alike. The weathered, varied palette seen here results from differing copper, iron, and manganese colorants reacting with burial conditions over more than two thousand years. Item # 203429

Estimate:$450

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