New Kingdom Beadwork

Hi

This section of my Homepage deals with Egyptian jewelry. Actually my interpretation of ancient Egyptian jewelry using modern beading techniques. I say modern beading techniques because beadweaving and bead embroidery were both known to the ancient Egyptians. Some of the best known examples came from King Tutankamen's tomb because it wasn't pillaged like the other other Pharaohs. There is a beaded hassock (#354) King Tutankamen's tomb that looks like to me that it is circular peyote that was sewn to the hassock. Recently there have been finds at Gaza of beautiful bead net shrouds that were still mostly intact.

I have loved the look of ancient Egyptian jewelry since I was a child. I saw one of the great traveling King Tutankamen artifact shows in Detroit where I grew up. Doubtless all this traveling about was bad for the artifacts, but it gave middleclass smucks like myself who had never been to Egypt, the chance to glimpse the glory of Pharaoh. It also encouraged me to donate money to move the temple of Abu Simbel (even though I was only 12 years old) so that it could be preserved when the great dam that created Lake Nasser was created and would have flooded it. Someday I am going to go to Egypt and see all this stuff myself. It could take several trips.

First a little background and then on to the photos and descriptions. I hope that this page can be interesting to those interested in ancient Egypt and to beaders. First the title. The New Kingdom was a period of Egyptian history that begins with the expulsion of the Hyksos invaders (1570 bc). The corresponding dynasty is Dynasty 18. I used this name because this period is my favorite period of Egyptian history.