#broad collars

Ousekh necklace; modern assembly

Silver ornaments have been an important part of the Miao culture for over 400 years where it is customary for Miao women to adorn themselves for festivals and celebrations and especially for their wedding day. Miao families begin collecting silver jewelry for their daughters as infants, keeping it in a special wooden box in anticipation of her wedding day, when she displays her finery for the whole village. A wedding costume often includes 8 – 10 kg of exquisitely fashioned silver that represents beauty, wealth and dignity and is believed to ward off evil. Silver jewelry is an easily transportable form of wealth for the Miao minority during seasonal migrations. The jewelry is made using traditional techniques passed down from generation to generation.

Wah's broad collar, anklets, and bracelets were made as funerary ornaments for the burial and were found in the layers of linen wrapping that were closest to the body; the collar had been tied around the neck, the bracelets and anklets had been laid over the lower arms and legs. They are all made of a ceramic material called Egyptian faience. Beaded jewelry sets of this type are illustrated in the object friezes that decorate many Middle Kingdom coffins, and fragmentary examples have been found in numerous tombs of the period.

Collar: composed of sixty-four long thin cylinders of green with some blue glazed composition strung vertically to form a collar. The beads are graded in size, the shortest at the ends. From the longest cylinder at the centre hangs a green glazed composition amulet of indeterminate shape; it is possibly just a notched cylinder. At each end of the collar is strung a green glazed composition oblate bead.

It is highly likely that jewellery elements depicting fruit, flowers and parts of plants had an amuletic significance, since all growing plants were inherently symbolic of new life and some flowers actually open each morning, reconfirming the idea of resurrection. This collar was found complete but the original order of stringing could not be determined.

Collar of blue glazed composition beads and open-work amulets in form of goddess holding a papyrus sceptre within naos.

Broad collar: composed of one row of horizontally strung beads and five vertically strung rows, two semicircular terminals and fourteen mummiform pendants, all of glazed composition. The long cylindrical beads are arranged vertically in five rows (bright-blue, white, purple, bright-blue, white) which are closely joined together. Above them is a sixth row of cylinder beads of purple, white and bright-blue glazed composition, strung lengthwise. The two bright-blue terminals, one of them broken, are pierced by six holes in the straight side and one in the curved side. The fourteen bright-blue glazed composition pendants are irregularly shaped, and some are concave in the middle; all are pinched in at each end. They are all flat on the reverse.

A broad collar ('wesekh'): consisting of five rows of beads, two semicircular terminals and seven mummiform pendants, all of glazed composition. Four of the rows are of vertically strung cylindrical beads connected only at the ends. The longer beads are in the centre of the collar, the shorter ones at the sides. The top row is of white glazed composition, the second of bright-blue, the third of white and the outermost row of purplish glazed composition. The last colour, not common until the Eighteenth Dynasty is produced from manganese oxide. The fifth, topmost, row is composed of a single string of bright-blue and white cylinder beads strung lengthwise. In the centre of each of the five rows is a short loop of bright-blue glazed composition disc beads. The seven bright-blue glazed composition mummiform pendants are attached to the bottom row of beads. The two bright-blue semicircular terminals are undecorated. Each has a ridge along the underside which is pierced by six holes through which the threads holding the rows of beads are knotted.