Earring

Gold earring of repoussé work with decoration in granules. Large, long loop, roundel at front with granular design. Hollow pendant in form of four balls. Slightly brusied and cracked in two places. The excavator, William Flinders Petrie, described his discovery of four gold earrings in a house at Memphis (modern Mit Rahina village): “in a broken jar-neck, on the floor of a house which had been heaped over with wasters from the glazing kilns. Their date is probably late Ptolemaic and they shew how skillfully granulated work was done then” (1910, p.44). The partner to Liverpool’s earring is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no. 10.164.1) and the other pair is in the Manchester Museum (accession nos.5277a-b). New York’s online catalogue record: http://metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/551299?rpp=20&pg=1&ft=*&when=1000+B.C.-A.D.+1&where=Memphis&pos=9 Manchester’s online catalogue record: http://emu.man.ac.uk/mmcustom/Display.php?irn=103528&QueryPage=%2Fmmcustom%2FEgyptQuery.php