ANCIENT EGYPT ART: Gold Bracelets, Meritamun´s Cedarwood Coffin and Ahhotep II´s Bead Bracelets

Solid gold bracelets set with lapis lazuli and bearing the cartouches of Ramesses II. The lapis lazuli forms the central body of a goose, which has two heads and a tail worked in gold. Found in 1906 in the Nile Delta, the bracelets were probably a gift from the king to a favored courtier.

Cedarwood coffin of Queen Ahmose Meritamun, daughter of Ahmose I and Queen Ahmose Nefertari, and sister and wife of King Amenhotep I, from her tomb at Deir el-Bahri in western Thebes.

In 1859 the intact of a 17th-Dynasty queen, Ahhotep II-who was the widow of King Kamose-was discovered at Dra Abu el-Naga in Western Thebes. More typical of a king´s burial than a queen´s, it contained the queen´s richly gilded coffin and many items of magnificent gold and jewelry, such as these exquisite bead bracelets of gold and semiprecious stones.

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D. Pemberton and J. Fletcher (Treasures of the Pharaohs, 2004)