26 June 2012

Jewels of Ancient Egypt

The Pacific Science Center in Seattle is currently having an exhibit that they advertise as "King Tut's Treasures". Naturally, when we think of King Tutankhamun, we think mainly of his large gold sarcophagus. And Gold. Lots of it. I found out that the exhibit, while having some treasures from King Tut's tomb, does include King Tut himself. In fact, more than half the stuff there was from other Pharaoh's tombs. The exhibit was still cool, but I left that day feeling cheated. 
A hollow gold cartouche pendant with hieroglyphs engraved upon it.


A gold and beaded earring from the tomb of a pharaoh.


A finely detailed gold necklace.

The detail is so amazing, I am glad it was well lit enough to get this close up shot.

A gold and precious stone beaded "bib"-like necklace.

The gold and precious stone are shaped like little flower blossoms.

Another gold royal earring. The gauge on this thing is like an 8 or larger!

Gold fingertip and toe-tip coverings, found in the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun.

A gold and precious stone scarab beetle ring.

A modern-looking rainbow beaded necklace. It reminds me of candy.



Another view of the gold scarab beetle ring.

A necklace-pendant thing, found in the tomb of King Tut.

Three large lapis lazuli scarab beetles grace the pendant.

A detail of the the part of the above piece of jewelry.

A winged snake gold ornament, found in the sarcophagus of King Tut.

A gold falcon necklace. This literally looked like the bird was cut from a sheet of gold, and then someone took something pointed and drew the feathers and detail in by impressing into the gold. Found in the sarcophagus of King Tut.

A beaded falcon necklace.

Detail of the Falcon's face.

I wonder if they restrung the beads. It seems like it would have fallen apart after over 2,000 years.


A gold parure of jewelry, comprising a tiara, an earring, and a necklace.


The lighting was rather bad, but as you all know, I love tiaras, and was super excited to see this one. It is comprised of a bunch of gold flowers.

A rather large pendant necklace.

A large stone scarab beetle rests in the middle of the pendant.

A super-finely detailed gold pendant necklace.