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Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · jewelry

Single-Strand Necklace with Taweret Amulets

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: In Egyptian art, one symbol could represent both a trait and its opposite. The hippopotamus could represent great danger and chaos or, alternatively, fertility and protection in childbirth. The statuette of a male hippopotamus could represent the god Seth, who embodied danger, chaos, and disorder in the world. Yet the rare limestone statuette of hippopotami mating perhaps served as a symbol that preserved the fertility of the earth. And a necklace consisting of images of the female hippopotamus goddess Taweret could protect a woman in labor. Caption: Single-Strand Necklace with Taweret Amulets, ca. 1332–1292 B.C.E.. Faience, 3/4 × 8 1/16 × 3/16 in. (1.9 × 20.5 × 0.4 cm) mount (mounted for 2025 Soulful Creatures tour on padded board.): 1 1/2 × 8 × 8 in. (3.8 × 20.3 × 20.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Lawrence Coolidge and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, and the Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 48.66.42. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06

Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

Faience necklace with several amulets.

The artifact is a necklace composed of small faience beads and several attached amulets of different colors, mostly in shades of blue, black, and teal. The amulets are shaped in various forms typical of protective symbols in ancient Egyptian culture. The craftsmanship suggests meticulous bead-making and amulet shaping techniques.

decorative unknown excellent
Materials faience

Connections

Found at Thebes
Deities Taweret
Materials Faience

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 48.66.42 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 3510 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.