Cornflower Pendant

Egyptian faience flat backed fruit and floral amuletic jewellery element: a cornflower (Centaurea cyanus). This would have been strung to form an openwork broad collar characteristic of the 18th Dynasty. Cornflowers were used in the New Kingdom for floral collars, such as in the well preserved examples from Tutankhamun’s embalming cache now kept at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Faience copies of the different flowers and petals used in such floral collars were very popular in the 18th Dynasty. Mayer Inventory (1928): "M12591. Seven porcelain pendants in shape of ...; Egyptian".