Egypt Through The Stereoscope

A Journey Through The Land Of The Pharaohs

by James Henry Breasted | 1908 | 103,705 words

Examines how stereographs were used as a means of virtual travel. Focuses on James Henry Breasted's "Egypt through the Stereoscope" (1905, 1908). Provides context for resources in the Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). Part 3 of a 4 part course called "History through the Stereoscope."...

Position 13 - The Magnificent Jewelry Of The Pharaohs (queen Ahhotep, Seventeenth Century B. C.), Cairo Museum

Little wonder that the orientals of Pharaonic times could not resist such magnificent plunder as this! These luxurious adornments were found with the body of Queen Ahhotep at Thebes in 1860. She lived late in the 17th century B. C., as Egypt was emerging from her struggle with her foreign lords, the Hyksos, the mother of whose conqueror, Ahmosis, the queen was; and although under foreign oppression, and fighting a long and exhausting war, the royal house possessed such splendid regalia as these. In the middle is a golden boat resting upon a wooden carriage with wheels of bronze. Within it are a crew of silver, while the figure of the king in the middle, the captain and steersman are of gold. Just beyond it is another boat with crew at the oars as in the first; it is all of silver.

On the right of this boat you see a small war hatchet and then a beautiful mirror of silver bronze with a handle of wood overlaid with gold. Nearer us is the magnificent battle axe of King Ahmose, which he carried only on ceremonial occasions and never actually used in battle. It is therefore gorgeously wrought; the cedar handle is overlaid with gold, the bands of costly stones; the bronze head is likewise overlaid with gold, through which ornamental figures are incised.

The dagger beside it is one of the finest pieces in the case; the blade exquisitely damascened in gold on bronze, a style later taken up and copied in Mycenaean art. Here in this corner is a flexible golden chain, 36 inches long, of the finest workmanship. At each end of it is the head of a goose in gold, while pendant in the middle is a golden scarabaeus, inlaid with lapis lazuli. The large breast ornament at this end of the case is entirely of gold; at either end is a hawk's head, and the pendant bands hanging in curves from these are made up of rosettes, flowers, blossoms and heads of animals.

The rectangular object propped up on a slanting card before the wheels of the boat, is a superb breast ornament or pectoral, with a gold frame and inlay of brilliantly colored costly stones. Besides these; there are bracelets of gold, beads and rings of the same metal, golden flies suspended from a chain and used as an order, or honorable decoration conferred by the king upon deserving nobles or officials. Even the remains of a fan are here, the handle being of wood wrought with gold, in which one may see the holes, where once the ostrich feathers of which it was composed were inserted. It must have been a royal spectacle indeed which the queen and the other wearers of these ornaments made, when they appeared in all the glory of such a rich display.

The workmanship of these pieces is such as no modern goldsmith need be ashamed to own, and yet they were made in the 17th century B. C. In neighboring cases are equally splendid regalia belonging to princesses of the 12th Dynasty, 2000 years B. C., in the days of Abraham; while near by are four bracelets found on the arm of a 1st Dynasty princess, whose body had perished, her arm having been torn off by some marauder and concealed in a niche in the wall at an early date. There it was found by Petrie. These bracelets are the earliest jewelry known and doubtless date from the middle of the fourth thousand years before Christ. No wonder that the Hebrews, little skilled in the arts and crafts, should have sent up to Phoenecia (which had by that time imported Egyptian arts) for the necessary craftsmen to make beautiful the temple at Jerusalem.

And now, as we leave the museum, let us first look at a monument, which directly refers to the Hebrews who were in Egypt at the time these splendid royal jewels before us were made.

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