"Medjai, my father needs you!!"

Nefertiri calling for help that will come too late ...

And finally we turn our attention to the lovely Nefertiri, Evelyn O’Connell in another life, and a pretty girl with lots of impressive treasure to wear at befits a pharaoh’s daughter.

The costume Rachael Wiez wears here is actually made from gauze with a pattern printed on it.  This is not historically correct, like a lot of the Mummy ideas, but it is an approximation of the pattern of what was actually worn which was made of beads and would have been worn over a plain linen shift.  One of these is kept in the Petrie Museum which is at University College London. Part of this campus was used to represent the British Museum in The Mummy Returns and you will find that in my Bus Ride Pages 'The no. 12 Bus'

The No. 12 Bus

Her circlet, the thing she is wearing in her hair, is based on this, which was found in the pyramid of Senusert and belonged to Merret who was an Old Kingdom princess, rather pretty isn’t it?

Her pendant is most interesting; I’ve not really been able to spot anything very similar to it despite all my reading but the drawing here which I did myself (fun stuff!) is of the daughter of Djeutyhotep and she had something similar-ish on.  The Egyptians did a lot with beads, big ones, tiny ones, different shaped ones etc etc. They made them out of all sorts of materials from gold and silver to semi-precious stones and a material called faience, which was a glass-like product made from Quartz coloured with chemicals.

I found these bracelets while looking for something belonging to King Tut. I think, after looking at them carefully, that they must be the ones most of the arm rings in the two films are based on. OK - the modern ones seem to be made from plaited golden shoelaces, but the effect is rather similar.

Nefetiri's rings are based on those found in Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb, shown here. They are made with little cartouches on them which would have held the kings name. The gold arm rings she has on are very interesting too; they have little flies hanging off them, also gold.  Now these were actually handed out in Ancient Egypt to soldiers who had successfully protected the country from invaders.  As Nefertiri is the protector of the Bracelet of Anubis, and can fight very ably too, it was not a bad idea to add them to her costume.

Treasure Choices

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