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The shroud was made from a net of thousands of colored beads.
(Image credit: Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson (
CC0, Public Domain))QUICK FACTS
Name: Bead net funerary shroud
What it is: A veil of multicolored beads
Where it is from: Luxor, Egypt
When it was made: Circa 664 to 525 B.C.
Ancient Egyptians wove impressively detailed nets of colored beads to create funeral shrouds around 2,500 years ago. The popular bead nets were placed on top of mummies wrapped in linen and symbolized the transformation of the deceased into Osiris, the god of fertility and the sovereign of the dead.
This beaded funerary shroud is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), which purchased it in the late 19th century from Rev. Chauncey Murch, the director of the American Presbyterian Mission at Luxor, who was an avid collector of ancient Egyptian art. The shroud measures 18 inches long and 15.8 inches wide (45.7 by 40 centimeters), meaning it can easily cover a person's head and upper chest.
The bead-net shroud has three main components: a human face, a winged scarab and a broad collar, according to Egyptologist Emily Teeter, who published a close analysis of the artifact for the museum.
The person's face has been crafted primarily from dark-blue beads, while their facial features and eye makeup are abstractly depicted with black, red and yellow beads. A false beard similar to the famous example on the mask of Tutankhamun has been added in teal beads. The use of numerous blue beads may be a nod to the sky goddess Nut, whose body was sometimes depicted as a series of stars in a field of blue, Teeter wrote.
Just under the face is a winged scarab rendered in multicolored beads. It probably invokes Khepri, a scarab-faced sun god who represented creation and renewal, according to the AIC. While scarab amulets were often added to mummies during the wrapping process, this artwork depicts the scarab in beads on the shroud itself.
Below the scarab is a collar made of dark-blue, red, yellow, black and light-blue beads that create a series of yellow lotus flowers and red floral pendants.
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Bead-net shrouds were typically placed over red linen that covered the wrapped mummy, according to Teeter. The shroud would have been held in place with ties that wrapped around the back.
"Together, the shroud and net imitated the wrappings of Osiris, hence symbolizing the assimilation of the deceased to the god," Teeter wrote. The goddess Nut also appeared frequently on mummies' chests. "Just as the arms of Nut encircled the deceased, the bead net enveloped the mummy," she wrote.
For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archives.
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Kristina KillgroveStaff writer
Kristina Killgrove is a staff writer at Live Science with a focus on archaeology and paleoanthropology news. Her articles have also appeared in venues such as Forbes, Smithsonian, and Mental Floss. Kristina holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology and an M.A. in classical archaeology from the University of North Carolina, as well as a B.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia, and she was formerly a university professor and researcher. She has received awards from the Society for American Archaeology and the American Anthropological Association for her science writing.
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