© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Peter Harholdt.

ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Bead-Net Face

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodLate Period

Date722-332 BCE

MediumFaience, linen

Credit LineEgyptian Purchase Fund

Dimensions7 3/16 x 8 1/16 x 3/16 in. (18.3 x 20.4 x 0.4 cm)

Object number2000.013.001

Label TextA feature of Late Period burials was the covering of the mummy with a network composed of faience beads. The first appeared in the Third Intermediate Period, although beadwork garments were used for burials in the Old and Middle Kingdoms.

The bead-networks of the Late Period are thought to derive from the costumes worn by goddesses, although they have been found on mummies of both sexes. When they initially appeared, they served as a simple covering over the body, with winged scarabs and images of the four sons of Horus worked in. By the Late Period they expanded to include occasional bands of text and a face mask, all done in painstaking patterns of tiny colored faience beads.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - Present
Published ReferencesBonhams, Knightsbridge, Antiquities (21st October 1999), 121, lot 425.
Peter Lacovara, "The New Galleries of Egyptian and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum," Minerva 12 (September/October 2001): 9-16.
Peter Lacovara and Betsy Teasley Trope, The Realm of Osiris (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2001), 87.

ProvenancePurchased by MCCM from Bonhams London, October 21, 1999, lot 425.

Status

On view

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