Ear studs, ear plugs or beads?: Reinterpreting a group of glass objects from New Kingdom Egypt

By Anna K. Hodgkinson

This short volume discusses a group of glass objects kept in the British Museum that date to the Egyptian New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC) and are commonly referred to as 'ear plugs' or 'ear studs'.

Ancient Egyptian ear studs from variety of materials appear in the archaeological record and are usually depicted as worn with a convex dome to the front. However, there is evidence to suggest that the glass objects discussed in this volume, and which are similar, but not equal, in shape to ear studs, were not designed as ear jewelery, but that they actually functioned as beads. The objects are flat-fronted and pierced latitudinally. The piercing, which is related to the manufacture of the objects on a metal rod,would have enabled the objects to be threaded and to be suspended vertically, either as parts of garments or as parts of bead chains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicanor Books
• Release date: Jul 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838118037

Anna K. Hodgkinson

Anna K. Hodgkinson (PhD Liverpool 2014) has recently completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Excellence Cluster Topoi. Her research focusses on Late Bronze Age (LBA) Egyptian settlement archaeology, LBA glass industries and chemical analysis of LBA glass objects. She has conducted archaeological fieldwork at the LBA Egyptian sites of Amarna, Gurob and Qantir.

Book preview

Kitab - Egyptology in Focus

Umbrella series

Material Culture of ancient Egypt and Nubia

Editor-in-chief

Gianluca Miniaci

Scientific committee

Miroslav Bárta, Manfred Bietak,

Julia Budka, Simon Connor,

Kenneth Griffin, Ahmed Mekawy,

Antonio Morales, Claudia Näser,

Rune Nyord, Campbell Price,

Yasmine El-Shazly, Angela Tooley,

Yann Tristant

This title is published by

Nicanor Books

© Anna K. Hodgkinson (if not otherwise stated)

All rights reserved

Cover image: Overview, at an angle, of the objects analysed for this study. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Cover design: Gianluca Miniaci

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-8381180-2-0

ISBN 978-1-8381180-3-7 (e-book)

ISBN 978-1-8381180-3-7 (kindle)

ISSN 2752-6259 (Kitab print)

ISSN 2752-6267 (Kitab online)

Kitab - Egyptology in Focus

Material Culture of ancient Egypt and Nubia

2

Ear plugs, ear studs or beads? Reinterpreting a group of glass objects from New Kingdom Egypt in the British Museum

Anna K. Hodgkinson

Nicanor Books

Table of Contents

List of figures

1 Abstract

2 Introduction

2.1 Ear jewellery in ancient Egypt

2.2 Manufacture and appearance

3 Literature Review and Terminology

3.1 Modern reuse

3.2 Ear plugs and -studs and possible parallels from other cultural contexts

4 The British Museum Objects: Provenance, Dating and Stylistic Details

4.1 The typologies

4.2 Dating criteria

5 Function, Use and Symbolism

5.1 As elements of necklaces or collars

5.2 As hair ornaments

5.3 On the fringes of, or as strings of beads applied to garments

5.4 As beads on a menit necklace

5.5 As papyrus-column beads or -amulets

6 Discussion

7 Conclusion

8 Acknowledgements

9 Bibliography

10 Appendices

10.1 Appendix 1: Catalogue

10.2 Appendix 2: Some parallels discussed in the text

10.3 Appendix 3: Typology based on shape

10.4 Appendix 4: Typology based on decoration

10.5 Appendix 5: Chemical analysis of glass compositions (with A. Meek and J.Dyer)

List of figures

Cover image: Overview, at an angle, of the objects analysed for this study. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 1: Map of Egypt showing the sites discussed. Map: author.

Figure 2: The objects in the collection of the British Museum, analysed for this study. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 3: Calcite ear stud EA 2712 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 4: Faience ear stud EA 59306 (British Museum) from Amarna. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 5: Wooden ear stud excavated in the Main City at Amarna. Find number 24/1033. Archive reference number TA.OC.23-24.1033. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Figure 6: Lady Mi, ca. 1390-1353 B.C.E. Wood, bone?, gold leaf, 6 1/8 x 1 3/4 x 2 1/4 in. (15.6 x 4.4 x 5.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 47.120.3. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

Figure 7: A disc bead being shaped by the author on a mandrel, using modern lamp-working technology. Photo: author.

Figure 8: The shape and components of the objects in the collection of the British Museum analysed for this study. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 9: Tool marks visible at the top end of the shaft, below the disc of object EA 29258 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 10: Ear stud, New Kingdom, Egypt. Glass, 1 x Diam. 7/8 in. (2.6 x 2.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 58.28.6. Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

Figure 11: Modern reconstructions of a) a glass bead, similar to the ones discussed in the volume and b) an ear plug with a sealed frontal piercing. Photo and objects: author.

Figure 12: Object cards from the Amarna Archive of the Egypt Exploration Society, showing a variety of the glass objects discussed here, with their interpretations. Archive references: a) TA.OC.28-29.014, b) TA.OC.28-29.128, c) TA.OC.23-24.0124, d) TA.OC.23-24.0708, e) TA.OC.23-24.0956. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Figure 13: Excerpt from the 1923 object index, by W. B. Emery, of the Egypt Exploration Society’s work at Amarna, showing an object catalogued as a Blue glass bead. Archive reference: TA.003.05. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Figure 14: Ear plug or Kohl applicator; Egypt; 1365-1347 B.C.; Glass, bronze; 14.7cm. Accession number 2003.155. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Figure 15: Zulu ear plug made of ivory, from KwaZulu-Natal, Nineteenth century. Af.3226 (British Museum). Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 16: Distribution map of the glass objects discussed in this volume at Amarna. Map: author.

Figure 17a: Type A1 of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: EA 67968, 16541, 29259, 29260, 29261, 35991, 16446, 66903a, 68535). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 17b: Type A2 of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: EA 16443, 16444). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 17c: Type A3 of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: 16445, 28258, 68531). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 17d: Type B of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: EA 6270, 16442, 29262, 29263, 29269, 66093b, 68530, 68532, 68533, 68534). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 17e: Type C of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: EA 29255, 29256, 29257). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 17f: Type D of the glass objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, based on decoration (Appendix 3: EA 29264). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 18: Fragments of glass objects from Malqata. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1912 (acc. nos, clockwise from top left: 12.180.834; 12.180.836; 12.180.837; 12.180.814). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 19: Overview, at an angle, of the objects analysed for this study in the collection of the British Museum. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 20: A selection of the objects in the collection of the British Museum, discussed here, as illustrated. Drawings: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 21: A bead makers’ workshop, from the tomb chapel of Sobekhotep at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna (TT63). Eighteenth Dynasty, reign of Thutmose IV. EA 920 (British Museum). Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 22: Ear- or hair-ring EA 57513 (British Museum) from Amarna, Eighteenth Dynasty. Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 23: Patches of residue on object EA 16442 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 24: Patches of residue on object EA 16443 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 25: Bead EA 7704 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 26: Bead EA 7777 (British Museum). Photo: author. Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum.

Figure 27: Block statue of Ptahmose, High Priest of Ptah in Memphis, Eighteenth Dynasty. Inv.-No. 41790-ME1790. By permission of the National Archaeological Museum of Florence (Regional Directorate of Museums of Tuscany).

Figure 28: Menit necklace from Malqata. Eighteenth Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III. MMA acc. no. 11.215.450, Rogers Fund, 1911. Digital image courtesy of the Open Access Program of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 29: Menit necklace from House U36.34 at Amarna. Eighteenth Dynasty, reign of Akhenaten. From F

RANKFORT

, P

ENDLEBURY

, City of Akhenaten II, pl. 36, 3. Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Figure 30: Painting of a scene from the east wall on the north side of the offering chapel of the tomb of Nakht (TT 52), showing the couple with Nakht’s wife Tawi holding a menit necklace (inset). Facsimile by Norman de Garis Davies. MMA acc. no. 15.5.19a, Rogers Fund, 1915. Digital image courtesy of the Open Access Program of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See also D

E

G

ARIES

D

AVIES

, The tomb of Nakht, pl. 11.

Figure 31: The rear end of object EA 29257 (British Museum),