Fly Pendants and Cylindrical and Spherical Beads
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: Fly Pendants and Cylindrical and Spherical Beads, ca. 1539–1292 B.C.E.. Gold, lapis lazuli, Length: 9 11/16 in. (24.6 cm) Fly Pendant: 11/16 x 5/8 in. (1.8 x 1.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.198. (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.
Two necklaces featuring beads and pendants are depicted.
The image shows two ancient Egyptian necklaces. The upper necklace is composed of gold elements shaped like flies and a central pendant, possibly made from faience or semi-precious stone. The lower necklace consists of uniformly shaped blue beads, likely made of faience. This style and use of materials reflect typical Egyptian jewelry-making techniques.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 08.480.198 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3246 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.