Beaded Girdle with Cowrie Shells and Amulets

Strung some four-and-forty centimetres in length and weighing scarcely fifty grams, this Middle Kingdom girdle (c. 2055–1650 B.C.), said to be from Thebes, is a miniature treasury of electrum, silver, and semi-precious stone. Six hollow electrum cowries, each painstakingly punched in two halves, soldered, and pierced for threading. With oblate lapis-lazuli and green-feldspar beads, amethyst spheres, and truncated bicones of lapis, cornelian, and electrum. A matching cowrie clasp, neatly engineered with a slot-and-bar catch, secures the strand.

Dangling between the beads are two hollow electrum pendants in the form of the side-lock of youth, a pair of repoussé fish with chased scales and pierced eyes once set with inlays, a kneeling Ḥeḥ amulet grasping palm-ribs of eternity, and a rare silver lotus pendant: its upper bloom fashioned from cloisonné petals of pale-blue glass and carnelian, the lower twin flowers banded in alternating dark and light blue.

Though its beauty might suggest a necklace at first glance, the proportions and composition indicate this piece was designed as a girdle; a decorative and symbolic belly chain worn around the hips. This is further supported by the archaeological record, where statuettes of Middle Kingdom women are often depicted wearing similar cowrie-shell belts.

Cowries, deeply associated with femininity, fertility, and sensual protection, were typically positioned low on the body to guard and bless the womb. The compact length, practical clasp, and recurring motifs of life and rebirth, fish for regeneration, lotus for dawn and Ḥeḥ for eternal time, align perfectly with this interpretation.

Together, these charms speak of vitality, divine safeguarding, and endless time, fashioned with a delicacy that belies the hard brilliance of their materials and the three and a half millennia that lie between their maker’s hand and ours.

Ḥeḥ

Though at first glance a delicate adornment, the inclusion of Ḥeḥ upon this Middle Kingdom girdle reveals it to be far more than a mere ornament. Ḥeḥ (god of eternity, boundless time, and the million-year span) was a potent emblem of the afterlife, whose very name meant “infinity.”

Often depicted squatting with upraised arms holding notched palm ribs, he embodied the unending nature of time and was invoked to grant everlasting life. His appearance among the fish, cowries, and lotus pendants of this piece imbues the girdle with deep symbolic resonance. In funerary contexts, such an amulet was not just a charm for beauty or status, it was a powerful plea for the endurance of the soul.

The god’s palm ribs, once used to mark vast spans of time, suggest that the wearer sought not merely rebirth but permanence in the afterlife: life renewed, then sustained for eternity. Amidst motifs of regeneration and fertility, Ḥeḥ affirms the cosmic hope of the deceased;that their journey would continue not briefly, but for millions of years beneath the protective gaze of the gods.

Though this luminous strand of beads likely adorned the waist of a woman, girdles in Ancient Egypt were by no means the preserve of the feminine realm. Men too, pharaohs, priests, and noblemen, wore such belts as both status symbols and ritual instruments. The famous mummy of Amenhotep I (c. 1525–1504 B.C.), unwrapped only through modern scanning technology, was discovered still girdled at the hips, his beaded belt a relic of both regality and sacred rebirth. For the king, as for all the dead, such an ornament may have acted as a binding spell to hold the body together, a protective charm for the reproductive organs, and a symbol of readiness for resurrection in the image of Osiris.

Cowrie-shell girdles, however, held a particularly intimate potency. Their smooth, glossy contours and the slit-like opening have long been understood to resemble the female vulva; an interpretation grounded in both Egyptological and wider anthropological scholarship. This resemblance, coupled with their prolific use in amulets and personal adornment, linked them symbolically to fertility, protection, and regeneration. As Carol Andrews and Richard H. Wilkinson note, cowrie beads were worn by women and children to ward off harm, while Ellen F. Morris situates them within broader protective assemblages used during childbirth. In societies across Africa and the Near East, cowries served not just as currency but as sacred charms; placed near beds, worn by brides, or sewn into garments to invoke the creative power of life itself.

While the materials are precious (electrum, lapis, amethyst), and the wearing of such an adornment was a sign of prosperity and wealth; the deeper brilliance lies in what they evoke: the eternal cycle of life and rebirth. Whether looped around the hips of a queen, a priestess, or a divine statue, such a girdle was more than ornament. It was a woven spell of power, protection, and promise.

Summary:

Beaded Girdle with Cowrie Shells and Amulets (Electrum, silver, lapis lazuli, cornelian, amethyst, feldspar, glass)

Middle Kingdom, c. 2055–1650 B.C.

From Thebes. Now at the British Museum.

Length: 46 cm Weight: 48 g