Ancient Egyptian Faience bead necklace

$96.00

This is a genuine ancient Egyptian bead necklace from the Late Period (about 600 to 300 BC).

These colourful beads were hand-made in ancient Egypt about 2500 years ago. They were made by rolling a clay / faience paste around a piece of string. This tube was then cut into thin sections which when dried and fired became the beads that we see here.

These beads were produced not just for ornamentation but also for funerals and were strung together into elaborate funerary face masks for the deceased. Over the thousands of years of being buried, the string usually degraded and was lost so when these beads were uncovered they were re-threaded on new strings. The beads themselves are still in remarkably good condition for being over 2000 years old.

This necklace measures approximately 70cm in length with the individual beads being about 3mm in diameter.

A beautiful and very rare item that has not gone out of fashion in the last 2000 years!