Armant Shell Bracelets

 

Armant Shell Bracelets, A-Group

These fragments of shell bracelets (AR50/3440), are some of several we have from Armant. They are from A-Group burials excavated by Mond.

Shell bracelets seem to have been common in the Predynastic and occur from the Nagada II Period, though in Nubia continue until the 3rd Dynasty. This is a surface find from an A-group cemetery. We have complete examples but these are undated. Kemp (1967) states that shell bracelets were made by cutting a narrow ring from the base of a large gasteropod (Conus) shell.

Kemp, B. ‘Appendix 6. Shell Bracelets in Egypt’ in C.B.M. McBurney 1967. ‘The Haua Fteah ( Cyrenaica ) and the Stone Age of the South-east Mediterranean’, 374-5. 

Other items from Armant, including A-group material