W4 and W5
Shell bracelets from Gebelein
These items were purchased by Wellcome at auction in 1920 along with the two stone bracelets. The auction label on the artefacts state that they come from Gebelein. The Predynastic cemeteries at Gebelein had been plundered over a number of years and it is possible that these items were a result of this activity.
Such items date from the Predynastic to Early Dynastic. Kemp (1967) states that shell bracelets were made from cutting a narrow ring from the base of a large gastropod (Conus) shell.
T. Baghe (2004: 599) that many bangles and bracelets of the first Dynasty are child size which might suggest they were either specifically tomb equipment or kept as belongings from the childhood of the deceased. One might add the inclusion of fragile bracelets made of flint in graves suggests that in some instances bracelets were specifically tomb equipment.
In later periods, the Egyptians called sea shell ‘stone of the water’s edge’ (Mumford 2012: 114).
Further Reading
Bagh, T. 2004. First Dynasty Jewellery and Amulets. ‘Finds from the Royal Naqada Tomb: Proposed Reconstructions, Comparisons and Interpretations’. in Hendrickx, S., Friedman K.M. and Cialowiczki M, (eds.) Egypt at its Origins. Studies in Memory of Barbara Adams. Leuven: Peeters, 591–606.
Kemp, B. 1967. ‘Appendix 6. Shell Bracelets in Egypt’ in C.B.M. McBurney. The Haua Fteah ( Cyrenaica ) and the Stone Age of the South-east Mediterranean, 374–5.
Mumford, G. 2012. Ras Budran and the Old Kingdom trade in Red Sea shells and other exotica, British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 18, 107–45
Needler, W. 1984. Predynastic and Archaic Egypt in The Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Museum, 314-315.
