Description:
A large rectangular beaded net strung into an open lozenge pattern. The tubular faience beads have been arranged diagonally with ringbeads where the tubular beads interconnect, whilst the border was formed by stringing tubular beads close together, parallel to each other.
Such nets were placed over the front of a wrapped mummy, usually covering him from just below the shoulders to the feet, and were often sewn or tied to a linen shroud or to the outer mummy wrappings.
The blue-green, turquoise colour of the faience was chosen deliberately because it has solar symbolism. Funerary texts tell us that the sun, rising in the morning between two sycamore trees made of turquoise, was greeted and praised by twelve turquoise gods. Even the sun disk itself and its rays could be called turquoise, and turquoise coloured sun disks can be found on coffins of the Third Intermediate Period up to the early Ptolemaic Period. The colour was a combination of the fertile green of vegetation and the powerful blue of not only the regenerative waters of Nun, the primeval waters from which everything was created (Arnst (2004), p. 84-85), but also of the sky goddess Nut. Since the deceased hoped to be reborn from his mother Nut and to join the sun god on his daily journey, or even to be identified with him, the bead nets were believed to assure rebirth and resurrection.
For parallels see Friedman (1998), p. 160; 249, nos. 163-164.
Background information:
Garments consisting of beads, strung together in lozenge patterns, have been excavated from Old Kingdom contexts (Jick (1988), p. 78; Friedman (1998), p. 249; Bianchi (2022), p. 77; compare Arnst (2004), p. 79, note 1). There is some discussion among scholars whether these were exclusively for funerary purposes, or were also worn in everyday life. In favour of the latter speak several examples of a dress with a lozenge pattern on Old Kingdom private statues and painted tomb reliefs, and the painted wooden female offering bearers from the tomb of Meketre (Middle Kingdom); however, although it has been assumed that these multicolored patterns depict beadwork, the conventions of Egyptian art make it difficult to establish with certainty whether the beads were sewn on or woven into a cloth dress, or if the pattern was created by a netting of beads made entirely or partially separate from the garment underneath. Clearer evidence of a separate net garment comes from the third story in the papyrus Westcar, in which king Snefru is entertained in a boat that is rowed by twenty beautiful women draped in nothing but nets (although the story takes place in the Old Kingdom, the text was written much later).
By the time of the Third Intermediate Period the net garment appears exclusively in funerary contexts, and from then on was placed almost exclusively over outer mummy wrappings in both male and female burials. Sometimes they have a beaded frieze with the depiction of divinities, symbols like the djed-pillars, masks, collars, winged scarabs, and even hieroglyphic texts.
The development of putting beaded nets on mummies was probably contemporary with the use of fishnets to envelop a mummy; both methods persisted into the Roman Imperial Period. It has been suggested that the beaded network and the fishnet, both designed as a two-dimensional lozenge-shaped network on shrouds, reflect the lozenge-shaped network of bandages on mummies, and that all four must be considered subsets of the same typology, the function of which is to serve as a "whole-body amulet" (Bianchi (2022), p. 78; 85-86; compare Arnst (2004), p. 79-93; Price (2020), p. 168; Zibelius-Chen (2011), p. 399-406, who relates such bead nets to rites of protecting Osiris Hemag, a special form of the god during his reawakening).
Bibliography:
Caris-Beatrice Arnst, "Vernetzung. Zur Symbolik des Mumiennetzes", in Martin Fitzenreiter - Christian E. Loeben (Hrsg.), Die Ägyptische Mumie. Ein Phänomen der Kulturgeschichte (IBAES - Internet-Beiträge zur Ägyptologie und Sudanarchäologie, 1) (Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Seminar für Sudanarchäologie und Ägyptologie, 1998; London, Golden House Publications, 2004), p. 79-93;
Robert Steven Bianchi, "Sealing the Dead", ENIM, Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne 15 (2022), p. 75-92;
Florence Dunn Friedman (ed.), Gifts of the Nile. Ancient Egyptian Faience (London, Thames and Hudson, 1998);
Millicent Jick, "Bead-net dress", in Sue D'Auria - Peter Lacovara - Catharine H. Roehrig, Mummies & Magic. The Funerary Arts of Ancient Egypt (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1988), p. 78-79, no. 9;
Campbell Price, Golden Mummies of Egypt. Interpreting Identities from the Graeco-Roman Period (Manchester - Glasgow, Manchester Museum and Nomad Exhibitions, 2020);
Karola Zibelius-Chen, "Das Tübinger Fragment eines Perlennetzes (Inv. 1842)", Studien zur Altâgyptischen Kultur, 40 (2011), p. 399-406.
Dating:
Late Period, circa 700 - 300 B.C.
Size:
Circa 65 x 25 cm maximum.
Exhibited:
Museum of Man, California, 1968 (inv. no. M150).
Provenance:
Collection of Dr. Goddard Du Bois (1869 — 1925) and Josephine Cook Du Bois (1864 — 1961), New York, acquired in Egypt between 1900 and 1906. The couple took frequent excursions throughout Egypt, and acquired a marvellous collection of antiquities, one of the largest privately owned collections to be exhibited in major museums in the USA.
Condition:
In a very good condition, only some beads are damaged or broken, and the string is broken in places around the border.
Price:
€ 4,500
Stock number:
E1371