Jewels Of The Nile

The stench is fierce from burning reeds.  It pollutes the air around the jeweller, as do the clouds of smoke and the acrid stench of metal from the other forges in the house of jewellery.  Drenched with sweat but ignoring the smell as best he could, the jeweller crouches on the packed earth in a simple cotton loincloth. He picks delicately at the metal with his tools, only looking up when a slave from a noble house runs in to speak to his master.  "Is it ready?" The slave asks the overseer.  "As you can see," the overseer indicates the crouching jeweller. "Not yet."

Class System

Unlike the noble who commissioned his work, the jeweller's position in ancient Egypt was a low one, the same social class as other kinds of smiths.  Often depicted on tomb walls as dwarves, they were bound by a hierarchical caste system and got little credit for their creations, instead giving credit to the overseer of their jewellery house. 

Despite this low position, jewellers were responsible for creating some of the most important symbols of the realm. An Egyptian's closeness to the gods was not metaphorical; the higher the rank in the caste, the closer a person was to the god himself, with the pharaoh and his priests as the embodiment of the god in human form.

Double Standards

Jewellery was one of many indicators of caste. Priests, for example, were not allowed to wear animal products because animals were considered unclean, and were often clad in cotton or imported silk.  The symbolic meaning of cleanliness went in both directions. The lower casts, especially pig herders, were not allowed to marry outside of their caste due to their association with the dirtiest of animals.

Jewellery, especially made of gold and precious gems for the higher castes, was the way in which Egyptians protected themselves from the forces of chaos, or isft, that surrounded them. All jewellery was considered protective in some form – even jewellery made for the lower castes were considered amulets, and helped to keep an Egyptian’s life in line with maat, or the force of universal order.

Counterfeit Jewels

Symbols were wound into each creation that referenced Egyptian mythos, with specific symbols indicating different mythical meanings and different protective powers. The designs of these symbols were as rigid as their meanings, much like wearing an alphabet, and any changes to the symbols were considered an alteration in meaning. Therefore, jewellers had to cleave to a particular standard of representation to give the wearer the best possible amount of luck. For the lower castes, high-quality fakes were made that resembled items of gold and gems. These copper jewels were often adorned with glass rather than gemstones due to the range of color that jewellers could imbue into the glass.  Jewellers became so skillful at creating these false gems that it is still often difficult to distinguish between them and more precious jewels.

One style of jewellery worn by all classes was the ankh, a symbol basic to the Egyptian alphabet, depicted by a cross topped with a circle. On tomb walls the ankh was seen held aloft in the hands of gods and goddesses. It depicted many things, including the union of male and female genitals, the source of the Nile, and eternal life. As an item of jewellery, the ankh was sometimes worn alongside the symbols for strength and health. It was made out of various materials, but because it represented the sun rising above the delta of the Nile, the preferred material was gold.

Animal Artefacts

Several other symbols were common in Egyptian jewellery. The scarab held importance of place because of its connection to Khepri, one of the gods that represented the sun.  The beetles’ daily activity, creating and rolling balls of dung, was a fundamental metaphor for Khepri’s life-giving occupation of rolling the sun across the sky.  In ancient Egyptian the word for scarab was xpr, which translates into “to come into being” or “to transform". This symbolic union of word and image meant that scarabs in jeweled form were placed within a pharaoh’s mummy wrappings, aiding his passage to the other realm. 

The eye of Horus the falcon god is another well-known symbol.  Representing Horus’s left eye, it was worn for protection by the power of the gods, and was often painted on the prow of ships to see beneath the waves. This protective eye warded off evil, and protected the dead in the afterlife.  At the end of life, the powerful symbols embedded in jewellery were the most important of the possessions that an Egyptian carried into the next world.  After spending a lifetime amassing a jewellery collection, the wealthy and powerful could, and did, take it with them.

“His wife’s funeral is tomorrow,” the slave says to the overseer. “He desires the scarab to adorn her burial cloth.”
“That is a shame. Perhaps a few more copper debben would hasten the labor.” The overseer glances slyly at the smith.  The smith slows his pace obediently, feigning a look of weariness.
“I will tell my master.”

Images by Sandro Vannini. All rights reserved.

Written by Achariya Rezak.

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About The Author

Achariya Rezak

Achariya Rezak is a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia, specializing in the field of Reading Education.  Her concentration is in informal education in online spaces, and more specifically how fan culture informs the ways in which fans think and feel about literacy.  Her dissertation research focuses upon the exchange of learning (and specifically cultural learning) in online anime-based roleplaying games.  She writes and researches feature articles as a much-loved hobby.

 

Last three pieces by this author: Women's lives in Ancient Egypt, Interview with a Metaverse creator: AvaGardner Kungler, Animals of Ancient Egypt

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