Beaded Girdle with Cowrie Shells and Amulets

Strung some four-and-forty centimetres in length and weighing scarcely fifty grams, this Middle Kingdom girdle (c. 2055–1650 B.C.), said to be from Thebes, is a miniature treasury of electrum, silver, and semi-precious stone.

Six hollow electrum cowries, each painstakingly punched in two halves, soldered, and pierced for threading. With oblate lapis-lazuli and green-feldspar beads, amethyst spheres, and truncated bicones of lapis, carnelian, and electrum.

Middle Kingdom, c. 2055–1650 B.C. From Thebes. Now at the British Museum. EA3077