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Each Individual Piece Has Been Encased in a
Cartier Gold Setting. The Parts Are All Linked
Together to Form the Pectoral. Faience, which
dates back to pre-dynastic times, of at least
5,000 years, is a glasslike non-clay substance
made of materials common to Egypt: ground
quartz, crushed quartz pebbles, flint, a soluble
salt-like baking soda, lime and ground copper,
which provided the characteristic color. The dried
objects went into kilns looking pale and colorless
but emerged a sparkling "Egyptian blue." Called
tjehnet by the ancient Egyptians, meaning that
which is brilliant or scintillating, faience was
thought to be filled with the undying light of the
sun, moon and stars and was symbolic of rebirth.
In the cultural renaissance of the 26th Dynasty,
also known as the Saite Period, a green, the color
of the Nile and evocative of the verdant
landscape in springtime, was particularly
popular.
By far the most important amulet in Ancient
Egypt was the scarab, symbolically as sacred to
the Egyptians as the cross is to Christians. Based
upon the dung beetle, this sacred creature forms
a ball of dung around its semen and rolls it over
the sand, creating a larger ball. Eventually, the
scarab drops the excrement ball into its burrow
where the female lays her eggs on the ground
and covers them with the ball. In turn, the larvae
consume the ball and emerge in the following
days from the ground as if miraculously reborn.
In the life cycle of the beetle, the Ancient
Egyptians envisioned a microcosm of the daily
rebirth of the sun. They imagined the ancient sun
god Khepri was a great scarab beetle rolling the
sun across the heavens. The scarab also became
a symbol of the enduring human soul as well,
hence its frequent appearance in funerary art.
The holes in this faience pectoral reveal that it
was originally sewn onto the bandages of a
mummy, presumably over the chest region. In
this funerary context, the desire of the deceased
to be reborn in the afterlife was symbolized by
the life cycle of the beetle, echoing the daily
rebirth of the sun. The luminous blue hue of the
faience, the same blue as the life-giving sea,
further reinforces the concept or rebirth. The
wings of the scarab, with the incised feathers,
appear to resemble those of a hawk or falcon
more than they do those of a beetle. However,
the falcon was associated with the sun and the
sky god Horus, who appears in the form of the
two falcon headed terminals crowned by the sun
disk that are mounted above the tips of the
wings, thus further expanding the theme of the
solar cycle and rebirth. The four deity figures,
the Sons of Horus, were symbolic of four major
organs that were traditionally removed during
the embalming process. Human-headed Imsety,
symbolizing the liver. and jackal-headed
Duamutef, the stomach, both face right while
falcon-headed Qebhsenuef, the intestines, and
baboon-headed Hapy, the lungs, both face left,
all carrying a long folded cloth in their hands.
These deities also appear in the form of canopic
jars, in which the removed viscera were
contained. The combination of such diverse
elements united together in a work of art in
order to symbolize a complex philosophy of life
and death is characteristic of Ancient Egyptian
art.
- (X.0117)
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