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An Egyptian gold and garnet necklace with fly amulets image 1
An Egyptian gold and garnet necklace with fly amulets image 2
Various Properties
Lot 109

An Egyptian gold and garnet necklace with fly amulets

Antiquities
1 December 2020, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £42,750 inc. premium

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An Egyptian gold and garnet necklace with fly amulets
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1550-1350 B.C.
Composed of twenty gold flat backed fly amulets, each with a double piercing through the head, interspersed with garnet beads and granulated ring beads, the elements restrung in modern times, 42cm long, the flies each 1cm long

Footnotes

Provenance:
Said to be from the Valley of the Kings.
Dr Dean Crocker collection. On loan to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1978-2000 (MFA registration number 52.1978).
with Mele Ancient Art, Connecticut.
Private collection, Europe, acquired from the above July 2004.

Exhibited:
Allard Pierson Museum, Archaeological Museum of the University of Amsterdam, 17 November 2006 – 25 March 2007.

Published:
Egypt's Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom 1558-1085 B.C., (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1982, no. 315.
C.A.R. Andrews and J. van Dijk (ed.), Objects for Eternity: Egyptian Antiquities from the W. Arnold Meijer Collection, Mainz, 2006, p. 83, no. 2.07.

It has been suggested by Marianne Eaton-Krauss in the catalogue entry for the above necklace in Egypt's Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom 1558-1085 B.C., p.238, that some components of this necklace may have come from a royal burial, since similar granulated beads were found in the burials of three queens of Thutmose III and also in the tomb of Tutankhamen.

The use of fly amulets dates as far back as Naqada II, prior to 3100 B.C., however gold fly amulets became popular in the New Kingdom; for example, three very fine examples were found in the Theban burial of Queen Ahhotep. During this period flies were associated with awards for military valour; presumably the insect's persistent behaviour represented the perseverance of a soldier in attacking the enemy.

For a similar solid cast gold fly and garnet bead necklace dated to the 18th Dynasty see C. Andrews, Amulets of Ancient Egypt, London, 1994, fig. 48c.

Additional information

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