AN EGYPTIAN CARNELIAN “JAR” BEAD New Kingdom, Dynasty XIX–XX, 1307–1070 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN CARNELIAN "JAR" BEAD, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XIX-XX, 1307-1070 B.C. Of miniature amphoriskos form, carved from a single piece of translucent carnelian of warm orange tone shading to pale honey-yellow, the body of pear-form rising from a broad flat foot to a rounded shoulder and a short cylindrical neck, the whole pierced horizontally through the upper neck for suspension. The natural banding of the stone runs diagonally across the body, the maker exploiting the variegated colouring so that the paler zone crosses the lower body and foot while the deeper orange saturates the shoulder. The surface retains a soft polish, with minor pitting visible on one face of the body. The form imitates in miniature the storage and unguent vessels of Egyptian daily and funerary life, reduced to the scale of an amulet or bead for stringing. Such jar-beads were worn as elements of broad collars and bracelets, and were also deposited in burials, where their vessel shape carried associations of provisioning the deceased with the oils, wine, and offerings that full-scale jars contained. The pierced neck confirms the object's use as a suspended element rather than as a functional container. Carnelian held particular significance in Egyptian material culture, its red-orange colour associated with blood, vitality, and solar regeneration, and specifically linked with the goddess Isis through the tyet or Isis-knot amulet, itself often executed in this stone. The Book of the Dead prescribes carnelian for several protective amulets, and the material was quarried in the Eastern Desert and imported from Nubia, worked by lapidaries attached to temple and palace workshops. Its selection for a miniature vessel bead brings together the amuletic weight of the material and the offering symbolism of the vessel form. The Ramesside period, spanning the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, saw the production of large quantities of small hardstone beads and amulets for personal adornment and burial equipment, with carnelian, amethyst, and faience the dominant materials. Jar-form beads of this type belong to a wider corpus of vessel-shaped amulets that also includes heart-jars, situla forms, and miniature nu-pots, each drawing meaning from the full-scale vessels they abbreviate. This bead exemplifies the Ramesside lapidary's use of colour-banded carnelian to animate a miniature form, allowing the natural variegation of the stone to articulate the body of the vessel without recourse to added ornament. It is a compact demonstration of the New Kingdom preference for hardstone amulets whose meaning derives equally from material and from shape. Dimensions: Height: 1.8cm

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