Design

Modern goldsmiths describe ancient Egyptian gold work not only as technically proficient but intelligently designed. The amount of gold is suited to the object, and the object will have few parts—partly because a method for joining larger segments had not been developed. While Middle Kingdom jewels are often cited for their purity of design, even the opulent Tutankhamun jewels illustrate these basic principles. For vessels of precious metals, design can be studied most extensively in the containers from Tanis.

Composition of base alloys (see Appendix 2, pp. 342-5)

Ogden has recently stated that most native Egyptian gold prior to the Late period was probably gold-as-mined, its major impurity always silver and its copper less than 2% (Ogden 2000: 162-4). To some scholars, “gold” has to be at least 75% pure, and below that—in the presence of considerable silver—must be termed “electrum.” But an object can stiU look gold at 60% purity, especially with a higher copper level, and color, rather than composition, must have been the determining factor to the ancient Egyptians. In Ogden’s experience, 70—85% purity is most typical of

A. Front (left) and back (right) of Chaban rosette; back shows excess solder

B. Earring MMA 26.8.94b, Cat. iio, showing poorly worked tubes and reinforcement on back side of disk

C. Lion box spacer from MMA 26.8.124d, Cat. 138; note excess solder along edge

D. Bead spacer shown at left. Cat. 138, with considerable excess solder

E. Inlaid hinged ornament MMA 26.8.129, Cat. 141, with excess solder on left vertical strip, and coupon to right of hinge

Fig. 89a—e. Details of Wady Qumd gold work

A. Vulture applique of Tutankhamun showing very high quality tracing

B. Back side of Tutankhamun vulture applique showing surface that melted as loop was attached, no doubt with a copper salt

C. Left, Psusennes sandal with smooth chased parallel lines and stepped rosette petals. Right, Tutankhamun falcon collar with poor workmanship on right side and two reinforcement strips

Fig. 9oa-c. Details of Tutankhamun and Tanis gold work

Middle and New Kingdom gold work, with purity above that rare before the Late period; then, 95% purity is noted, possibly because of the introduction of refining.

Systematic compositional analysis was not undertaken in this study; rather, analyses were performed when other sources of information were inconclusive (see Appendix 2; micro-samples were taken except in two cases). It should be noted that the recent jewelry analyses of Petrie’s Qurna woman were on the surface of the objects (Eremin et al. 2000: 38), and therefore can be roughly compared with only two of those in Appendix 2 because of different methodology. Note also recent analyses published by Richard Newman and Michele Derrick (Markowitz et al., 2002: I24f, 127). The gold purity of objects considered ancient here was almost always below 75%, the copper generally between 2 and 4%, with silver making up the difference.

For the composition of metal objects considered modern, see p. 274 as well as Appendix 2.