Pendant with the Cartouche of Kheperkare (Senwosret I)
Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, reign of Senwosret I (about 1956–1911 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Shell and pigment; 10.5 × 6.4 × 0.3 cm (4 1/8 × 2 1/2 × 1/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1894.695
This fragment of a Red Sea oyster shell was fashioned into a pendant incised with a cartouche that encircles the name “Kheperkare,” the throne name of King Senwosret I.[1] The rough exterior of the shell has been ground away, leaving only its lustrous nacre layer. Better-preserved examples have two holes pierced near the hinge of the shell, allowing them to be strung and worn as pendants. Traces of blue pigment are visible in the hieroglyphs. About fifty of these pendants are known, most of them inscribed for Senwosret.[2] However, there are a few inscribed with the name of his successors, Amenemhat II and Senwosret III.[3]1
These pendants have been excavated at many sites throughout Egypt and also at the fortress of Uronarti in Nubia. Some examples have been found with what have been interpreted as mummies of soldiers—one was discovered on the body of a man buried with a dagger, another with an archer—suggesting that the pendants were some sort of award for military service or the badge of a specific military organization.[4] Another interpretation, based on the existence of inscribed shells from the Old Kingdom to the New—some made of gold, some inscribed for women—is that they were “primarily amulets,” and that the shell versions may be related to the Nubian presence in the Middle Kingdom and its established tradition of shell jewelry.[5] In either case, significant labor went into their manufacture, and they were considered valuable enough that some of them were buried with their owners. One example was broken and repaired in antiquity, further suggesting its value.[6]2
Shells of various types were used to make jewelry throughout ancient Egyptian history, from the Predynastic era onward. They could be filed and drilled through to make small round beads. Some types of shells—especially cockles, scallops, and cowries—were pierced and strung in their natural forms. The cowrie, in particular, had erotic associations because of its perceived resemblance to female genitalia. In the Middle Kingdom, costly copies of shells made of gold were used for necklaces and girdles.[7]3
Additional View of Cat. 66
Back of cat. 66.
Provenance
Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894.4
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 126.5
Herbert E. Winlock, “Pearl Shells of Seʿn-wosret I,” in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith, ed. S. R. K. Glanville (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1932), 391, no. 12.
6
- This king’s name is sometimes rendered as Sesostris. Two identifications of the shell have been proposed. Avicula (Meleagrina) margaritacea has been suggested by (among others) Herbert E. Winlock, “Pearl Shells of Seʿn-wosret I,” in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith, ed. S. R. K. Glanville (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1932), 389; Janine Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals: Egyptian Art in the Middle Kingdom, with a contribution by Stephen Quirke, exh. cat. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Fitzwilliam Museum, 1988), 153. The shell is identified as Pinctada margaritifera by Adela Oppenheim et al., eds., Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015), 168.
- Oppenheim et al., Ancient Egypt Transformed, 168.
- Oppenheim et al., Ancient Egypt Transformed, 168–69.
- Various hypotheses have been offered for the original function of these shells. Winlock favored the military association. Winlock, “Pearl Shells of Seʿn-wosret I,” 389. Oppenheim et al. more cautiously endorsed an association with soldiers. Oppenheim et al., Ancient Egypt Transformed, 169. Bourriau interpreted them as purely amuletic. Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals, 154.
- Cyril Aldred, “A Pearl Shell Disk of Ammenemes II,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 38 (1952): 131–32.
- Oppenheim et al., Ancient Egypt Transformed, 169.
- See, for example, Oppenheim et al., Ancient Egypt Transformed, 116–17, 240.
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 66 Pendant with the Cartouche of Kheperkare (Senwosret I),” 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/10.53269/9780865593213/72.
© 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/.
