Anubis Bracelet, Small collar, Netted Collar
All of these pieces feature Scarebs. To read more about scarebs see the page on the Winged scareb necklace. After seeeing The Mummy though, it's almost enough to make you swear off scarebs.
This piece was done in brick stitch in 10/0 seed beads and 15/0 hex beads. The band was done in 10/0 seed beads to match the Anubis amulet bag. The scarebs are carved onyx. The bezel around the scareb are bronze colored 15/0 hex beads inn circular brick stitch. The technique for making the bezel is the same as described in "Beautiful Beads" by Alexandra Kidd (1994) p 74 for the rosettes in the necklace. After the bezel was completed, using the horizontal beads of the picot edging, the scareb was sewn to the brick stich band. The band is edged in black charlottes. The terra cotta spiral button used as the closure is lamp glass made by Rae Friedman of Good Medicine Beads.
I made this collar to match the clothes I took on my Vancouver vacation. The internal elements are mounted on pins and then the necklace is assembled with 8/0 seed beads and bead cord. This piece has 4 dumorite (looks like lapis but cheaper) and one carnelian scareb. After the necklace was assembled then "bezel" around the scarebs was added. With Nymo you tie onto the top of the pin that the scareb is on and then edge the scareb with the nymo, tying onto or around a pin when you pass it. you so this about three times, then circular brick stitch is added using the Nymo as a base. The brick stitch after a few rows is edged in picots (two-bead pickup). There is a more practical reason for the "bezel". Without it the scareb keeps turning over and not lying flat.
This piece was made in vertical netting with 11/0 seed beads off a base necklace of irregular adventurine beads . In the front, the collar ends in various gemstone scarebs: green jasper, tiger eye, onyx, or carnelian. The pattern for the netting is taken from a Zulu beadwork collar shown on p62 of Beads! by Stefany Tomalin (1988). This piece is the biggest stretch as far as being traditional Egyptian. Most Egyptian boad collars have the look of the small collar.
In modern adaptations of broad collars, netting is ofter used to get better drape and to decrease the weight. Some of those original Egyptian collars must have weighed 5 plus pounds, and people actually wore some of those things they were buried with . Many of Tutankamen's broad collars show evidence of wear. The way archeologists often can tell if one of those heavy collars was worn is the presence of a counterpoise. The couterpoise was on the back of the necklace where the clasp would be and cascaded down the back of the neck. They involve heavy jewelry elements because it's purpose was to place weight on the back of the neck to balance the weight of the necklace on the front of the neck with the theory being if the weight was balanced one could more easily wear the necklace ( I guess, unless you actually collapse). Lest you think only pharaohs were the only ones wearing this stuff, heavy broad collars with counterpoises have been found in graves of Egyptian of all walks of life; they just contain more expensive raw materials as you move up the social ladder.
I could go on about the symbolism of the scareb and so on , but I don't want to bore you ( if I haven't already).