Beaded collar
- Accession Number
- W10
- Current Location
- House of Life (first floor), Plants case
- Object Type
- Jewellery, Wesekh collar
- Period
- New Kingdom
- Dynasty
- Eighteenth Dynasty
- Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten
- Materials
- Faience | Stone/minerals (Lapis lazuli)
- Provenance
- Egypt, Amarna
- Measurements
- Depth: 75mm
- Number of Elements
- 1
- Animal
- Fish
Licensing details
- Description
-
An Amarna style beaded collar dating to the New Kingdom. The central amulet is a heart (although the early photographs show no heart pendant). Other amulets include a crouching child, female figures with staff, fish (lapis lazuli), and a situla. The heart amulet is unusual for the New Kingdom. The child motif may represent the king or queen as a child of the Aten (Györy 1998). Heart amulets are mentioned in several chapters of the Book of the Dead. The collar was part of the Berens collection purchased by Wellcome in 1923. Randolph Humphrey Berens, née McLaughlin (1844–1922) took the name Berens on his marriage in 1877 with Ellinor Frances Berens. Both collected Egyptian antiquities. His collection was sold by Sotheby's on 18th June 1923. His wife's collection was sold on 29th July 1923 and 31st July 1923.
- Bibliography
-
Bosse-Griffiths, Kate 1975. Bead collars with Amarna amulets in the Wellcome Collection of University College, Swansea. In Posener, Georges (ed.), Actes du XXIXe Congrès International des Orientalistes: Égyptologie 1, 20–24. Paris: l'Asiathèque. Bosse-Griffiths, Kate 1977. A Beset amulet from the Amarna Period. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 63, 98–106. Bosse-Griffiths, Kate 2001. Bead collars with Amarna amulets in the Wellcome Collection of the University College, Swansea. In Amarna studies and other selected papers. Edited by J. Gwyn Griffiths. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 182. Freiburg (Schweiz); Göttingen: Universitätsverlag; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 27–30. {Reprint of Bosse-Griffiths 1975} Györy, Hedvig 1998. Remarks on Amarna amulets. In Eyre, C. J. (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists, Cambridge, 3-9 September 1995. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 82. Leuven: Peeters. 497–507. Gabolde, Marc 2008. La redécouverte de la nécropole royale de Tell el-Amarna. Égypte, Afrique & Orient 52, 31–38. [p. 32]
- Wellcome Number
- A24683
- Previous Owners
- Ellinor Frances Berens (1842–1924) | Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853–1936)
- Acquisition
- Long-term loan, The Wellcome Trust (15 Feb 1971)
- Last modified: 16 May 2021