Ancient Egyptian turquoise faience scarab (mounted on swivel bezel in modern gold ring). From the end of the third millennium B.C., the scarab beetle served as an amulet in Egypt where it represented the sun god. The scarab integrated into a gold ring appears in the fourth century B.C. The articulation of the insect and...
Upon death, people who were thought to have lived moral lives were reborn in the afterlife as a form of the god Osiris. This Ptolemaic gold ring is inscribed with the title “Osiris,” followed by the owner’s names and titles, attesting to his faith that he would become one with the god after death. Gold...
Wrapped together in a package, placed above the right wrist of the mummy of Tutankhamun, were five rings, three of which are illustrated here. (Top to bottom) (a) Particular interest attaches to the material of this ring. It is a green translucent stone, which Carter thought was chalcedony. However, scientific tests carried out by Alfred...
These two unique two gold rings are decorated with lotus flowers. The blossoms are made from lapis lazuli and carnelian set into gold cloisons. One ring of this pair has a slender hoop attached to a lentoid bezel on which opposing lotus blossoms with petals of alternating dark and light blue glass are cut and...
“This brilliant blue scarab is carved out of lapis lazuli. Scarabs first become incorporated into finger rings in the Middle Kingdom (1980-1630 BC).” (Jennifer Wegner, label text, “Sacred Adornment: Jewelry as Belief in Ancient Egypt”) The Egyptians used amulets shaped like scarab beetles as seals, piercing the scarab longitudinally to allow it to be strung...
The ring bears the throne name of Tutankhamun (“Nebkheperure”), whose spectacular tomb in the Valley of the Kings was discovered in 1922. Tutankhamun was raised in Akhenaten’s court at Amarna, yet his reign saw the reversal of Akhenaten’s revolution, including the return of the court to Thebes. The gold ring was found in an elaborate...
This gold ring of Akhenaten and Nefertiti was found at Tell el-Amarna. The hieroglyphs may be read as an ideogram. The two seated figures are probably Akhenaten (left) and Nefertiti (right) as the deities Shu (air as indicated by the feather he holds) and Tefnut (moisture). They were father and mother of the earth and...
Solid-cast gold signet ring with swiveling rectangular bezel inscribed on one side with the throne name of King Amenhotep II and epithets: “the perfect god, son of Amun, mighty lord” [nTr nfr sA imn nb xpS]; and on the other side, “the one who fights against hundred thousands, son of Re, Amenhotep, divine ruler of...
The ring, decorated with a Hathor sistrum, which is clearly an ancient Egyptian product, was found in a Late Bronze Age Canaanite tomb at Tell el-Ajjul, indicating that Egyptian amulets besides scarabs were used by the Canaanite population during this period, in emulation of Egyptian customs. The connection of the cat with the Hathor sistrum...
On the large silver-tin alloy signet ring the prenomen of Ramesses IV appears—Hekamaat-re’ (“Re Is the Ruler of Maat“). In the lower half are several hieroglyphs—djed (“stability”), hes (“praise”), and hetep (“peace” or “satisfaction”)—that probably serve a decorative or amuletic function because they do not comprise a logical text. Likewise, the semi-hemispherical nb hieroglyph at...
