Rosette headdress

This gold inlaid with carnelian, turquoise head-dress (Met Museum. 26.8.117), belongs to a queen of Thutmose III.

The headdress is made from gold, gesso, carnelian, jasper, and glass. The Met Museum writes; “These rosettes from the funerary equipment of three foreign wives of Thutmose III have been displayed in various ways, since they came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1926. Most familiar to previous viewers is their reconstruction as part of a wig cover with 26.8.117bb as the head piece. Such a cover was first suggested by Herbert E. Winlock in 1937 and later modified. According to present understanding, the joining of the rosettes to the gold disk 26.8.117bb, and the use of strands of rosettes as a wig cover are uncertain.”

Menhet, Menwi and Merti, also spelled Manhata, Manuwai and Maruta, were three minor foreign-born wives of Pharaoh Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty. They are known for their lavishly furnished rock-cut tomb in Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud near Luxor, Egypt. They are suggested to be Syrian, as the names all fit into Canaanite name forms, although their ultimate origin is unknown. A West Semitic origin is likely, but both West Semitic and Hurrian derivations have been suggested for Menwi.