Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · jewelry

String of beads with shell pendant

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Meroitic Period, 30 BC–364 AD. Faience, shell. L. 83.8 × Dia. 0.4 cm (33 × 3/16 in.). From: Cemetery 1, Grave 195, Faras, Lower Nubia, Nubia (Sudan). Excavation: University of Oxford Excavations in Nubia 1911–1912. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1913.

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 view of a necklace/amulet string made of many small rectangular blue-green faience-like beads, ending in a small shell pendant shaped like a conical/teardrop shell.

The image shows a long strand of beadwork laid against a light background. The beads are predominantly turquoise/blue-green with occasional darker accents, and they appear uniform in size and shape, consistent with faience bead strings. Near the left end hangs a small pendant/element that clearly differs from the beads: it looks like a natural shell fragment or shell-shaped piece (a narrow conical/teardrop form with a pale exterior and darker interior/edge). A small green bead and/or spacer is visible near the center of the strand above the pendant. No cartouches, deity iconography, or carved hieroglyphs are visible on the beads or pendant in this photograph.

decorative Meroitic Period (as catalogued); exact dating from image alone uncertain good
Materials faience (beads; turquoise/blue-green)shell (pendant)possibly stone/glass core within beads (unclear)

Connections

Found at Faras
Materials Shell

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116438518 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 13.125.65 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 561738 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
  • 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.