Two strands of acacia-seed beads (151-2); see pp. 125, 240, 305 Provenance
Four carnelian and two turquoise glass acacia beads were found by Chaban in the tomb (pp. 29f.); their dimensions, configuration, and material match those catalogued below.
Examples of green felspar and bitumen were found among beads left from the early purchases (pp. 113, 305). An amethyst example appears in a photo with gold acacia seeds alleged to be from the Wady Qurud (Keimer 1949: 137, fig. i); nothing further is known of this bead.
Previous assessment
These beads were strung in 1936 by the MMA with loop-and-pin clasp 216 and with gold spacers now thought to be modern (311—3). In 1936, reproduction beads of orange, turquoise, and blue were added, and in 1944 yet more reproductions (Winlock 1948: 35f, pi. 2oa-b with reproductions). With the purchase of individual gold acacia beads 321 in 1958, all elements were rearranged to make two girdles by using the accommodating clasp 215. The girdle using 215 is illustrated in Aldred (1971: 205, 207, pi. 63) and A. Wilkinson (1971: 135, pi. 47c).
Current understanding
According to comparative data, acacia-seed beads could be used in necklaces, girdles, or armlets of one or two strands, and they appear in various sizes, as pointed out by C. Andrews (1981: Appendix U). The silver bead from MMA Assasif tomb 840 cited there is typical of the large type (1.9 x 1.9), where there is space for only one horizontal string, and the edge is emphasized by an incised line or row of dots (Capel and Markoe 1996: no. 25; Holzl 2001). The Assasif example was found with other jewels in a disturbed burial; however, sixteen large gold seeds (H 1.7,
W 2.2) were scattered around the head area of Hepy at Lisht (Lansing 1934; fig. 39). Three stone seeds were also near the head in a burial at Dendera (Vernier 1925: CG 52758: carnelian, H 1.5 X W 1.6; amethyst, H 2.5 x W 2.8 and H 2.7 x W 3.2), both inscribed, pace A. Wilkinson (1971: 81). The precise find spot of twenty-seven silver examples from Kom el-Hisn is not known (W of each, ca. 1.6; JdE 87404).
Medium-sized seeds were found in Dahshur, Lahun, Saqqara (Vilimkova 1969: pL 21a), Qau, Haraga, and Lisht burials cited by C. Andrews (loc. cit.), varying from singles to multiples. The MMA has now arranged a number of individual stone Lahun acacias with gold double-acacia spacers and combined them with large gold CoRTie-spacers to form a girdle (Brunton 1920: 33f. [xv], pis. 3 and 7). Acacias and CoR'ne-spacers from Dahshur have also been mixed in a girdle. Such a mixture of motifs may not be correct, but the double-seed spacers, at least, suggest a girdle.
Of particular chronological interest here are a gold double-seed spacer found at Mirgissa (Vercoutter 1970: 236 §9c) and ten silver double-seed examples used with silver barrels from an early 18th dynasty MMA tomb in the Assasif (Lansing 1917; fig. 12; Cairo JdE 45666). Found inside the coffin, they were classified by Lansing as a girdle (H of each 1.2, W 0.9).
Tiny acacia seeds and spacers have also been found, notably next to Senebtisy’s mummy at Lisht (Mace and Winlock 1916: 68—70, pi. 23). They were reconstructed as a girdle of six strands of colored seeds (each seed:
W ca. 0.4, H 0.3) held separate by three pairs of double-seed gold spacers (each spacer: W 0.4, Ff 0.5) and one central spacer of four acacias fused together with a ring (H 1.5). Similar individual seeds and spacers (three fused seeds) were found at Tell ed-Dabaa, in the head area of a burial (reg.-nr. 2590a, from tomb 3 in field A/II-m/i6;
M. Bietak communication, 20 May 1987). These have been strung into a necklace with bivalve shells found nearby (Bietak 1996: 45, color pi. 2b; Hein 1994b: no. 169).
Lozenge-shaped units, which could be acacias, are shown in an armlet and as hair or wig ornaments in a Middle Kingdom tomb at Qau (Petrie 1930: 14, pi. 24).
For the beads below, use with the loop-and-pin clasps as previously strung is doubtful: although the beads could be threaded into five strands with those clasps, the outer two rows of seeds would extend beyond the bars; furthermore, there is no evidence of acacia seed use in wide armlets. It is also doubtful that those clasps would have been used for a belt or girdle, since their vertical dimension would make movement difficult. Finally, the girdles of Petrie’s Quma woman, Kha’s wife Meret, and perhaps Meryetamun had string ties rather than clasps (p. 175), no doubt a practical feature.
There are fifty acacia beads associated with the Wady Qurud: thirty-four camelian (four Cairo, thirty MMA) and sixteen glass (two Cairo, fourteen MMA). It is likely that there were an equal number of carneHan and turquoise glass beads, therefore at least sixty originally, divided into two rows of thirty. These would work well with spacers, but no spacers are extant. The gold acacia-seed spacers 311—3, as well as individual gold acacia beads 321—2 previously strung with the carnelian and glass beads, are now considered modem.
151 Thirty acacia-seed beads Figs. 91I, 185 (left), 232 (sixth from top)
MMA 26.8.ii8d (P 136), including selective 1982.137.4 (two), 1988.25.1 (six), and 1988.25.2 (seven).
Source Purchases: Fletcher Fund, 1921; Lila Acheson Wallace Gifts, 1982 and 1988.
Material Carnelian.
Dimensions L of string 21.0; individual bead H i. o, W 1.3. Manufacture On many, a transversal ridge from hole to hole.
Condition Several have chips.
152 Fourteen acacia-seed beads Figs. 185 (right), 232 (fifth from top)
MMA 26.8.ii8e (P 136; nine), incorporating selective 1982.137.4 (four), unaccessioned 58.153 (one-half a bead).
Source Purchases: Fletcher Fund, 1921; Frederick P.
Huntley Bequest, 1958; Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1982. Material Turquoise glass.
Dimensions L of string 16.2; individual bead H i. o, W 1.3. Manufacture Molded.
Condition Beads discolored and occasionally broken from weathering.
Beads and spacers of melon and ball shape (153); see pp. 125, 240, 305 Provenance
Carter found at least one lapis lazuli melon bead in the tomb (p. 47), and the MMA found one in the Pit at the wady head (p. no).
The turquoise melon and ball beads are made of the copper-colored glass known from items found by Chaban: drop element inlay, and beads of barrel, cylinder, and acacia shape (p. 45, Fig. lyd—e, i—j).
Previous assessment
Melon and ball beads were originally stmng with dmm beads 199 and Conus-shoU beads 197 as a necklace, without the two incomplete spacers drawn in Fig. 186, top. Later, the beads were grouped with those spacers and buckle 315, being understood as part of a girdle or necklace (Winlock 1948: 37; see also Hayes 1959b: 135, fig. 73; Kayser 1969: fig. 210). In 1959, Scott removed buckle 315 and placed it with recently purchased gold melon beads as a girdle, and the dmm. Conus, and colored melons and balls were stmng as a necklace.
Current understanding
Melon beads are known from the Middle Kingdom (Vernier 1925: CG 52865; Bisson 1950: CG 70723) and New Kingdom (Carnarvon and Carter 1912: pis. 46.2 no. a, 73.13), and may be represented in a broad collar of round beads in Kenamun’s tomb (N. G. Davies i93o[i]: 27 no. 33, pi. 15 [rows of gold beads with parallel black lines alternating with rows of blue beads]). Small ball beads of gold and glass were stmng in four rows near Tutankhamun’s neck, in what Carter described as “a small sort of dog-collar” (Carter 256mmmm; Carter 1927: 118, pi. 77b). Rekhmira’s tomb has three-strand jewels that N. G. Davies considered collars (1943: 38 no. 14, pi. 37).
The incomplete gold spacers here—with a ball bead on the outside and a melon within (one is drawn completely at the bottom of Fig. 186)—have no known Egyptian parallel. In an assemblage from the East cemetery at Deir el Medina, three rows of glass drops, barrels, and balls are separated by spacers shaped as gilded, wooden ball beads (IFAO and Musee du Louvre 1981: no. 25iab, Louvre E 14005—6); the gold spacers in Tutankhamun’s “stole” are shaped more as articulated plates than fused individual beads (Carter 2690; Carter 1933: 79, pi. 20b). However, in the Near East there appear to be fused gold melons at late Middle Bronze-age Ebla (Matthiae 1979: 160, fig. 74).
They also exist in the Old Babylonian unprovenanced “Dilbat Hoard” (Lilyquist 1994a: 33 a-5—a-y, fig. 12). For side-by-side faience melons (rather than one above the other), see Petrie (1891: 23 §45, Ashmolean 1890.786). Because of the two spacers, each composed of at least three beads, the various ball and melon beads of gold, lapis lazuli, and turquoise glass associated with the Wady Qurud have been gathered into a three-strand assemblage. To these could be added: nineteen ball beads (gold, six; lapis, seven; turquoise glass, six) and eighteen melon beads (gold, six; lapis, six; turquoise glass, six) in the British Museum (162). “Many more” lapis and turquoise melon beads from an original dealer have been reported.
The use of such an arrangement is not known, however. Representations of three-strand girdles made of round beads occur on figures, but the beads could have been flat rather than round.
153 Three-strand assemblage
Figs. 91k and n, 186
MMA 26.8.63a, incorporating 58.153.19, .21, .22 (one gold ball, one gold melon, one glass ball), 1982.137.6 (five gold, five glass, and five lapis melons) and selective 1988.17 (six gold, eleven glass, eight lapis balls; seven gold, two glass, five lapis melons).
Source One lapis melon found in tomb chamber by Carter, p. 47. Purchases: Fletcher Fund, 1919 (P 55, gold baU beads) and 1920 (P 101, gold and “stone” beads); Frederick P. Huntley Bequest, 1958; Lila Acheson Wallace Gifts, 1982, 1988.
Materials Gold (twenty-three balls, thirty-three melons, two spacers each preserving one melon and one ball), lapis lazuli (eleven balls, twelve melons), turquoise glass (twelve balls, nine melons), felspar (four balls).
Dimensions L as strung 21.8.
Manufacture There are currently 105 individual beads. The gold balls and melons were each made in hemispheres joined around the circumference, and the glass and stone examples have ridges incised between the holes. The ends of the individual gold beads are sometimes flattened, the holes are generally punched inward. Rarely, however, the edge of the hole projects outward.
There are also two incomplete gold spacers where the outer surface of each ball has a drum-like projection, and the outer surface of the melon has a void that indicates that it was once fused to a third item, presumably another ball (Fig. 186 (below) for one spacer). Two individual gold melon beads with losses indicate that they too were joined to another element (Fig. 186 [top]).
Condition Normal wear and aging.
World History
