Horus
HorusHorus was depicted in Egyptian art as a falcon or falcon-headed man. Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris. On reaching adulthood, he fought his evil uncle Seth who murdered his father and triumphed over him. Horus is the champion of truth, order, or rightness, while Seth is the champion of chaos and destruction. As the conquerer of chaos, Horus was the special patron of the pharaoh. The Pharaoh was a living god to his people and reconcilliation of the conflicting powers order and chaos was the pharaoh's chief role. Pharaoh was the earthly manifestation of Horus , the falcon, lord of the sky.
This aspect of Horus is as Re-Horkhte, lord of the horizon as the sun rises. Horus is crowned with the disk of the sun and clenches the shen the symbol for eternity. His feet as supported by the Ankh the symbol for life, so in essence he is holding the message for eternal life. I bet the goldsmith who made this piece during the 90 days he had to finish this piece before the funeral had to think of some way to support the thin feet of the bird so that they didn't snap off. The ankh is a decorative strut which provides support. Lucky for me since the beadwork feet need support more than the metal ones did.
This pectoral is done mostly in square stitch. I charted it using a picture of a pectoral from Tutankamen's tomb (piece no. 267m(1), The Complete Tutankamen by Nicholas Reeves, p151) and from looking at actual photos of peregrine falcons which the image of Horus as the Egyptians typically portrayed him resembles. Instead of using the Egyptian colors in the piece from King Tut's tomb, I used the natural pallette of the peregrine falcon. I charted this piece myself using Beadscape software.
The main body of the piece is in square stitch and used 19 different 11/0 delicas. To give the 3-dimensional effect, as many as three layers of beads were square stitched on top of each other. The wings and tail were edged in black matte (db 310) with two or three bead fretting. The rays of the sun which are in part a structural element of the piece, are clear delicas used with red Nymo to give the morning rays of the sun a delicate rosy glow.
The strap contains three colors of 8/0 delicas with glass and vermeil accent beads. I thought that the 8/0 delicas resembled the faience cylinder beads that the Egyptians employed in their broad collars and pectoral straps. The strap was assembled using single , 2-drop, and 3-drop brick stitch, and square stitch. The closure is a lamp glass eye button. Egyptians wore the "Eye of Horus" which was a stylized eye talisman to protect them from the evil eye and demons. This eye resembles the true eye of Horus in that it resembles the pale gold eye of a raptor.