Teardrop Beads and Uraeus-Amulet
Description
Object Label: Necklaces Most ancient Egyptians owned at least one necklace. The simplest examples were made of tiny beads of shell, bone, faience, metal, or glazed steatite. More complex versions had beads in the form of amulets, including uraeus-cobras, wedjat-eyes (the eye of the falcon-god Horus, symbolizing wholeness), scarabs (charms in the form of beetles), or images of gods such as Hathor. Individual beads as well as complete necklaces had significance. Beads reproducing fruits or flowers, such as the examples in this case, were believed to enhance fertility. Military officers presented fly necklaces to valiant soldiers to acknowledge their tenacity in battle. Caption: Teardrop Beads and Uraeus-Amulet, ca. 1390–1292 B.C.E.. Glass, 5/16 x 41 3/4 in. (0.8 x 106 cm) Uraeus Pendant: 1 1/16 x 1/2 in. (2.7 x 1.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 05.577. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A close-up photo shows a string of blue-green teardrop-shaped beads arranged in a necklace form with a small metal-like hook/pendant element at the top.
The image depicts a bead necklace laid on a light-colored surface. The majority of the beads are small, translucent blue-green teardrop/elongated drop shapes with a darker outline, strung along two sides that curve to form a rounded collar/torc-like shape. At the center-bottom there appears to be a single larger drop bead. Near the upper-left area, attached to the bead strand, there is a small dark metal-like loop or pendant and a short raised element that may be a clasp or connector rather than an amulet figure. No clear uraeus (upright cobra) form is visible, and no distinct iconographic details for an amulet can be confidently identified from this image alone. No hieroglyphic/Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is readable. The bead appearance is consistent with glass beads; however, no manufacturing marks are visible.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 05.577 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3227 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.