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Cat. 61 Hand Mirror, New Kingdom Cats. 62–63 Pair of Earrings, New Kingdom Cat. 64 Ear Stud or Bead, New Kingdom Cat. 65 Bead or Amulet in the Shape of Two Birds, New Kingdom Cat. 66 Pendant with the Cartouche of Kheperkare (Senwosret I), Middle Kingdom Cat. 67 Ring with a Scarab Bezel, Second Intermediate Period Cat. 68 Eye of Horus (Wedjat) Finger Ring, New Kingdom Cat. 69 Finger Ring with the Throne Name of King Horemheb, New Kingdom Cat. 70 Ring Depicting Isis and Horus, Ptolemaic Period

Cat. 69

Finger Ring with the Throne Name of King Horemheb


New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, reign of Horemheb (about 1323–1295 BCE)

Ancient Egyptian

Faience; 2.1 × 1.9 × 0.9 cm (7/8 × 3/4 × 3/8 in.)

The Art Institute of Chicago, X52

This delicate, bright blue faience ring with an oval bezel is molded with the name “Djeserkheperure-setepenre,” the throne name of King Horemheb. The signs, enclosed in an oval border and arranged along the length of the bezel’s face, are to be read from top to bottom, right to left (see fig. 1).[1]
1

141212 1

Fig. 1


View of cat. 69 rotated by 90° counterclockwise. In this orientation, the hieroglyphs are read from top to bottom, right to left.

Faience rings like this were made in a variety of designs. Many bear a royal name or, during the reign of Akhenaten, the name of the sun god Aten. Others have floral motifs, animals, deities, or large hieroglyphs like the ankh (life) or wedjat eye (see cat. 68). The sheer number of these fragile rings and the fact that they could be quickly molded suggests that they were a popular souvenir like an ancient “party favor.”[2] Because many have been recovered from the palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata and from the royal city and houses at Amarna, it has been argued that they were distributed during celebrations related to the king.[3] Indeed, rings of this type exist with the name of all the kings of Dynasty 18, from Amenhotep III onward, most of the kings of Dynasties 19–20, and some of the kings of Dynasty 21, attesting to their popularity. Some examples, like this one, bear the throne name (prenomen) of the king, which suggests that they were produced in commemoration of a coronation celebration. However, others bear the ruler’s personal name (nomen), so they could also have been associated with a more general festival.[4] Examples have been recovered from temples, palaces, tombs, houses, and also from a foundation deposit of King Merenptah, attesting to both their commemorative and amuletic value.[5] Although made of relatively inexpensive material, their value is suggested by a group of them that was recovered from the tomb of Tutankhamun, found amidst other rings made of far more precious materials.[6]2

Most of these rings were produced in open molds made of baked clay. The shank was cast in a “D”- or “C”-shaped mold, while the bezel was made in another mold, usually oval in shape, and the decoration or name was carved or perhaps impressed into the surface.[7] The two elements were cemented together with a slurry of liquid faience.[8] The rings were made in a wide range of colors, including blue, green, yellow, purple, white, and red.3

Additional Views of Cat. 69

Top of cat. 69.

Side of cat. 69.

Finger rings, worn by men and women, are known from the earliest periods of Egyptian history. Rings could be worn in multiples. A cartonnage (layers of linen, gum, and gesso) mummy mask of a woman from the New Kingdom shows nine rings on her left hand and four on her right, including a large oval ring on each thumb.[9] The mummy of Tutankhamun was adorned with gold signet rings on the second and third fingers of his left hand, a packet of eight rings wrapped over his left wrist, and another packet of five rings over his right hand, while the hands of the mummy of King Psusennes I (Dynasty 21) were covered with thirty-six rings.[10]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), 84.
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Entry by

Notes

  1. The sun disk, 𓇳, above an arm holding a scepter , 𓂩, marks the beginning of the inscription.
  2. William C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pt. 2, The Hyksos Period and The New Kingdom (1675–1080 B.C.) (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959), 251.
  3. Andrew Boyce, “Notes on the Manufacture and Use of Faience Rings at Amarna,” in Amarna Reports 5, ed. B. J. Kemp (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1989), 160.
  4. Examples include three faience rings of Horemheb (Art Institute of Chicago, X54–56).
  5. Boyce, “Notes on the Manufacture and Use of Faience Rings at Amarna,” 160–61.
  6. According to Helen Murray and Mary Nuttall, these rings were found “thrown among the objects on the floor” and some were “threaded upon lengths of pith.” The faience rings were decorated with a number of subjects, including: Tutankhamun’s prenomen; Tutankhamun’s nomen; the name of Tutankhamun’s wife, Queen Ankhesenamun; animals; Bes with a drum; flowers; wedjat eyes; a scarab; and a cowrie. See Helen Murray and Mary Nuttall, comps., A Handlist to Howard Carter’s Catalogue of Objects in Tut‘ankhamĆ«n’s Tomb (Oxford: Printed for the Griffith Institute at the University Press by Vivian Ridler, 1963), no. 620, 65 h–w, 66 a–g.
  7. The shank of this example is C-shaped, and the oval plaque with the royal name bridges the opening. Among the many examples of C-shaped molds in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at the University College of London, see especially UC24145–24148, UC69073–74. For “D”-shaped molds, see Petrie Museum, UC1725, UC24141, UC24144. Paul T. Nicholson observes that the shank and bezel of such rings may be of different colors because they were cast in two separate molds and cemented together after they dried. Paul T. Nicholson in Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience, ed. Florence Dunn Friedman, with the assistance of Georgina Borromeo, exh. cat. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998), 257. William Hayes suggests that names on the bezels “appear to have been taken directly from actual signet rings.” Hayes, Scepter of Egypt, 2:250. Hayes also notes that the design on the bezel was cut into the mold. Ibid., 2:277.
  8. Friedman, Gifts of the Nile, 257; Boyce, “Notes on the Manufacture and Use of Faience Rings at Amarna,” 165.
  9. Painted and gilded cartonnage of a woman (British Museum, London, EA 6665; in Carol Andrews, Ancient Egyptian Jewelry [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990], 162–63, fig. 145).
  10. On Tutankhamun’s mummy, see Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh–Amen (London: Cassell, 1927), 2:127, 130, pl. 95. On King Psusennes I, see Beatrice Abbo, ed., Tanis: L’or des pharaons, exh. cat. (Paris: Association Française d’Action Artistique, 1987), 266–67. Goyon reports that there were twenty-nine rings on King Psusennes I’s hands. Georges Goyon, La dĂ©couverte des trĂ©sors de Tanis: Aventures archĂ©ologiques en Égypte (Paris: PersĂ©a, 1987), 162.

How to Cite

Emily Teeter, “Cat. 69 Finger Ring with the Throne Name of King Horemheb,” 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/10.53269/9780865593213/75.

© 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/.

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