Ear Stud or Bead
New Kingdom, mid–Dynasty 18–19, about 1390–1186 BCE
Ancient Egyptian
Glass; 3.2 × 1.3 cm (1 1/4 × 1/2 in.); diam.: 1.3 cm (1/2 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, X110
This mushroom-shaped object is a style of ornament that was popular during Dynasty 18. It is made of a mass of blue-green glass that was formed around a narrow rod or thick wire. While still hot, the top of the gather (a mass of molten glass) was flattened. Many examples, like this one, have a spiral trail of glass in a contrasting color (here yellow) on the stem that was marvered smooth, and other trails (here white) around the base and the perimeter of the flattened top. Some are domed at the top; others, like this one, are flat (fig. 1).1
Fig. 1
Top of cat. 64.
These objects are conventionally called ear studs, on the assumption that the decorated disk was held in place by inserting the stem through a piercing in the earlobe. It has been suggested that a small fresh flower could be inserted into the disk’s hole.[1]2
However, there is some uncertainty about these objects’ function because they are usually found singly in situ rather than in pairs, and there are no known images of individuals wearing them.[2] Furthermore, it seems odd that so much effort would be expended on decorating the stem if it was hidden from view in the earlobe. On the basis of the narrow hole piercing the length of the stem, Anna Hodgkinson, following W. M. Flinders Petrie and others, suggested that they may be beads rather than ear studs.[3] Carol Andrews also argued that they were not inserted into the earlobes but were instead suspended from them by wires, which would account for the decoration of the stem.[4]3
Early examples of these objects made of ivory or faience appeared in the Second Intermediate Period.[5] By the New Kingdom, they were usually made of glass or faience. After that time, they fell out of fashion.
4
Provenance
The Art Institute of Chicago, by 1923.5
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 123.
6
- Robert S. Bianchi and Birgit Schlick-Nolte, “Catalogue of Ancient Egyptian Glass Objects,” in Reflections on Ancient Glass from the Borowski Collection, ed. Robert S. Bianchi, exh. cat. (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2002), 126, EG-4a–b.
- Anna Hodgkinson, “Colourful Glass Adornments from Egypt: An 18th Dynasty Enigma,” British Museum Newsletter: Egypt and Sudan, no. 2 (2015): 16.
- Hodgkinson, “Colourful Glass Adornments,” 16.
- Carol Andrews, Ancient Egyptian Jewelry (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990), 109.
- Edward Brovarski, Susan K. Doll, and Rita E. Freed, Egypt’s Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom, 1558–1085 B.C., exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), 231.
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 64 Ear Stud or Bead,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/70.
© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
