The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-27
EGYPTIAN NECKLACES
AND ORIENTAL JEWELRY
Strings of Beads Almost as Old as
Human Race on Exhibition at
National Arts Club.
WERE FOUND IN TOMBS
An Amulet in the Shape of Heart
and Other Oddities of An
cient Work
ERE FOUND IN TOMBS

NEW YORK. Dec 26.-An exhibition of
ancient, modern and oriental jewelry Of
great interest was opened two weeks ago
at the National Arts Club in West Thirty
fourth street, to continue through the
month. Not only is Tart nouveau repre-
sented by a number of specimens from
the atelier of ]. Walter Lawrence and
Brainerd B. Thresher, of Dayton, o., but
there is also a collection OF articles de-
signed and wrought by Miss Luther, Mrs.
Knapp, Miss Mary L. Pearson and Mrs
Henry Butterworth; there are over three
/ hundfed rings from the c0lIectlon OF Alex
ander w. Drake, a case of crosses, rosarles
and necklaces lent by Mrs. William NJ
| Chase and a large number Of Egyptian ana
/ early Greek bead necklaces from the col
/ lections of Mrs. Garrett Chatfeld Pier and
| Mrs. FRANKIE ii. BoswOrth. 1t will be seen
/ that the exhibition strikes pretty broad
/ gamut.
Beads are as old as the human race"
/ said Mrs. Pier, in speaking of her neck
! laces. They were made almost before in
struments of warfare. To go back in his
\ tory as far as one can and pluck out Of the
bosom OF time these articles OF personal
/ adornment is the charming thing about II
/ 10 me. You ind the same Impulse In the
/ beads OF Egypt and in the beads of our
! North American Indians. These little disks
\ of the most heavenly blue''-here Mrs. Pier
took up a string of liliputian quoits, about
one third Of an inch in diameter and of
| almost fairy-like thinness-"these little
/ DISKS are cut precisely as our INDIANS cut
| their wampum, in the days before the Yam
/ kee trader began manufacturing 1t for
| them on Staten island. That is what inter-
| ests me so in beads-their universally and
| their cloSeneSS to the very springs OF our
| race life"
Mrs. Pier has spent the last three or four
winters in Cairo, and some OF the neck
| laces in her collection were brought to her
| with the fresh earth still clinging to them.
After washing one new acquisition Mrs.
| Pier says her hands were perfumed for
/ QaVS with the SDicPS and OinImentS which
| still chung To the beads. And that necklace
was 5000 years old.
| Among the particularly interesting pieces
in Mr.. Piers collection is a necklace COM
posed entirely of small fruits and flowers.
These were mace only in one place, Tel-el-
Amarna. under one King, Khu-en-Aten.
/ The necklace is over 1900 years old. These
exquisite little flowers and fruits are of
! glazed pottery and were cast in molds.
| Perhaps the prettieSt thing about them is
| the fact that each flower and each fruit
was nodded so perfectly that II has been
worked out and identified by Percy New
| bury, by means of funeral wreathS, carv-
/ ings and other representations of the fauna
| of ancient Egypt.
The necklace in the photograph is COM
posed of large, irregular shaped, fiat beads,
| opaque and of rich orange-pink color.
! They are very rare and date from 1862
1928 b. c. famous necklace which was
/ bought in London Is in the form of little
| close fringe composed of red sard pendants
and white glass amphOrae alternating. A
| handsome gold bulla forms the pendant.
1
/ says Mrs. Pier, is charming TO wear"
| One very valuable string of beads is of
| lapis lazuli, blue paste and gold. 1t is
| thought TO be from royal tomb.
CYLINDRICAL BEADS.
The earliest beads were made in the form
of long, slender cylinders. A necklace that
| dates from nearly 5000 b. C. shows a sue
cession of lapis lazuli cylinders with three
pendants in the front. One is an amulet in
/ the shape of a heart, one is Tat anu
| let, meaning stability, and the center pend
ant is a scarab, the most important and
/ sacred of all, standing, as IL does, for the
| Immortality of the soul particularly at
| tractive necklace, dating from the days of
! the Ptolemys, is made UP of little square
and oblong beads of gold lapis lazuli and
| feldspar. Near the front four groups of
little fiat gold beads-double beads, they
are, growing side by side like many
lace is of a double string of oblong beads
caught together by the square beads and
the little double gold beads.
| Some of these strings of beads are Just
! as they came from the grave, save for a
| little cleaning. while others have been re-
strung. Some, like the necklace of blue
| disks, have been bought bead by bead. The
blue disks were rare and expensive. A
few of the necklaces have been built up by
Mrs. Pier-recomposed, one might almost
say, as, for example, the Greek necklace of
| carbuncle beads, to which Mrs Pier has
| added as pendants long and gold and car
buncle earrings of the same period and
| workmanship.
''These necklaces are all the time being
discovered" said Mrs Pier. THE Arabs
turn them up every day. The why
| the soil of Egypt fairly teens with them
is that the ancient Egyptian women wore
| necklace upon necklace round her neck and
festooned across her corsage. When she
died and was embalmed all her necklaces
| were again placed on her person in readiness
| for the great day of her resurrection. When
the torlbs and graves are ransacked scores
| of these necklaces are found in them.
| 1T is amazing what fine effects the Egyp-
tians managed to produce from the limited
material at their disposal They had no
| diamonds, rubes, sapphires or any of the
gems known to the modern lapidary. They
had to produce their effects with paste or
pottery and stones which are now relegated
to third or fourth place In the category of
| Jewels. They had hematite, iron, field
spar, carnelian, sard, lapis lazuli, amethyst
| root of emerald, or emerald matrix, and
| blue and green pottery-that was about all
But l think the delightful things they con-
| ceived and carried out in these unpropitious
| mediums goes TO prove that we moderns are
diamonds and the other precious stones
| that beauty in jewelry isn't all a mere mat
| ter of glitter and FASH.
| From the beads of ptolemaic bellies to the
| new art buckles and brooches in the other
| cases may not be far a cry 1T seems
| Mr.. Lawrence at least has frankly availed
himself of the art of the ancients as ex-
| pressed in their glassware. Some of his
most striking effects have been produced
! by combining fragments of the lovely iri-
| descent glass found in Jerusalem, Cyprus
| and Asia Minor, and known variously as
! Cyprian or Phoenician glass, with gold and
sometimes with precious or semi-precious
] stones