I have always found egyptian culture to be very interesting. The piece I will be talking about is the pectoral of Senusret II. This piece is a chest ornament found in the tomb of Princess Sithathoryunet. The reason I find this piece so intriguing is the elaborate materials and design that was used for this piece. The chest ornament was made of gold with inlaid semi-precious stones. It has two Horus falcons that perch on it's base and above their heads is a pair of coiled cobras. Their is a scarab beetle and also their is the heiroglyph khepri which is a symbol of Ra and rebirth. The heiroglyohics of this chest piece once decoded means "May the sun god give eternal life to Senusret II."
This piece seems very similar and flashy to a lot of the chain necklaces that are worn by people today. Although they do not always have the same meaning as this partricular necklace, a lot of them wear the necklaces that are equally or even more elaborate in order to demonstrate wealth and power. In the picture I have included is 50 cent a rapper who has become extremely rich and succesful from his music and you can tell that he is demonstrating that through his necklace and bracelet. The egyptians did the same thing but it was more royalty than anything else.
3 comments:
I liked your blog on the necklace! I agree, we see flashy jewelry all throughout the ages as a sign of wealth and power. I think it's interesting to look at in today's context, because our current technology allows us to mass produce huge, flashy earrings and necklaces which look expensive, but do not actually cost that much. This makes it so that anyone can appear to be wealthy, even if they're not. Now it seems like it doesn't matter so much if a girl is wearing big jewelry, as it does, the quality of the big jewelry she's wearing. This is now what shows wealth.
very, very 8interesting matt!
I just saw E-40 perform a week or two ago and he and all of his "people" were wearing the kind of jewelry you are referring to. And while flashy has always been in style for high ranked people does this mean that rappers and hip hop artists are today's new royalty? They defintiely have the most obnoxiously ostentatious "bling" out there, but what does that really say? Is it that society is shifting our worshiping to idols other than rulers or that these artists somehow consider themselves god-like. I am not really sure. I don't think anyone is though. It's odd to think about.
Post a Comment