Dolomite
Carnelian
Garnet
Feldspar
Obsidian
Green Faience that was used to imitate feldspar and turquoise, Faux
Faience...LOL that tickles me for some reason.
Gold Cowry Shells...small, gold, gold and more gold...press the
thinnest sheets and cut out and start making little bands for braids
on wigs.
With these mixes we can make jars, daily goods like mirrors and make
up kits, all sorts of jewelry. We got to figure out how to make seed
beads for minis. Like take a strand of dental floss and drag it
through TLS and cure, if we cut little beads off of that ...could that
work? Could it work for tube beads? For a lot of collars were made
with rows and rows of tube beads. Faience was good for that because
it's a paste and reeds were dipped in it and then they were dried and
fired. The reed would burn up. Ok, if we took a wax reed, covered it
in clay or dipped it in tinted TLS, cured it on or over paper towel,
could we not get these delicate tube beads? Glass paste was used on
gold, so why can't we do tinted TLS on gold? I'm looking at the
painting of Tutankhamun and his wife, Ankehsenamun, it's on the back
of a gilded wooden throne. It uses glass paste and semi precious
stones. So there's green and gold and blue and pearl and the cutest
thing, both of them are only wearing one sandal, for they walk as one
and only need one pair...a sign of a loving relationship that one
sandal symbolism.
The Jewelry that is just the best comes out of the Middle Kingdom
(c.2055- c.1650 BC). Diadems (a gold band inlayed with precious gems
that went over the wigs, fancy headband), bracelets for wrists and
ankles, pectorals and collars.
There's shallow bas relief, the wall is flat, a drawing is done on the
wall, someone carves into the wall for a shallow bas relief, another
person comes and starts painting broad areas, another person comes and
paints in the details. Like an assembly line these walls were carved,
painted and prepared for the final day of who ever was in power at the
time.
What subject should one lean toward in the Egyptian study? Only what
one loves. I love Hathor. She is depicted with a human face with cow's
ears. I am born in the year of the Cow so I cotton to her. She
welcomes the dead to the Afterlife, appearing as a cow emerging
through Papyrus, which is sacred to her. She's always been popular
from the Narmer Palette, which dates from 3100BC to today where the
women in Southern Sudan do "Cow dances", holding up their arms like
cow's horns. Are these contemporary dances echoes of the dances to
Hathor of old? She represents divine motherhood. Sometimes she is a
slender woman wearing a headdress of a pair of cow's horns with a sun
disc between them or the human form with cow's ears. Sometimes she is
represented as a woman with the entire head of a cow. What's not to
love already? Of all the coming and going of Gods and Goddesses
popularity, raising mortals to the level of Gods, through all that
Hathor persevered, like the good mother, nurturing, loving and
protective.
If one were afraid of crocodiles one would appease the God that
controlled crocodiles. If one wanted help with any of the everyday
activities of life, from getting the lover you want, helping fertility
and childbirth, protecting children, cursing your enemies there's
incantations that were written on statues, water poured over the
incantation was then consumed by the supplicant for the wish to come
true. Said's father, who is from Morocco, writes prayers with water
soluble ink on paper and puts it in a shallow dish of water, when the
ink washes off the water is to be consumed and the prayer sent to
Allah...just Pharonic cultural beliefs influencing folks again. I told
Said if he doesn't feel this is a First Commandment beef he can humor
his father. If Said feels it's superstitious then he should say "Thanks
but no thanks".
The reason why I mention this is a statue that represents a God or
Goddess is often surrounded with prayers, incantations, that most
folks couldn't read, they just took it on faith that it said what it
said. They used these little statues to help control their daily
lives. For unlike the Afterlife, one does get hot, cold, old, sick and
die, and they felt they needed all the help they could get.
Just some thoughts about this. I'm on the edge of my seat to do
miniature Ancient Egyptian items. Doing minis is fun, but doing minis
that echo only contemporary themes misses out on a wealth of color,
design and cultural understanding of people of a bygone day whose
influence is still felt all over today.