Nefertiti's Necklace: manufacturing colorful glass items at Amarna in Egypt

Nefertiti's Necklace: manufacturing colorful glass items at Amarna in Egypt by Anna Hodgkinson

Thanks to Anna for allowing us to time-travel into ancient Egypt and have deeper understanding of its culture during that specific period.

Anna comments:
''Glass objects have been produced in pharaonic Egypt since c. 1500 BC, when it was mainly a royal monopoly. Whilst raw glass was first imported from Mesopotamia and the Levant, some was also produced in institutional workshops under strict control. However, the manufacture of finished goods including elaborate vessels, but also (and most frequently) of small items of jewellery occurred in small, domestic houses.

This talk will present the vast evidence of domestic glassworking found at the short-lived ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna), which was settled for a brief period of time under the rule of pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife, Queen Nefertiti (c. 1353 BC – 1336 BC). Focusing on the archaeological and artefactual record I will discuss ways of reconstructing the ancient glass-working techniques and its organisation.''

About Anna K. Hodgkinson

Anna is a Marie Curie Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Freie Universität and the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin. Her research focuses on the socio-economics of the production and consumption of high-status goods in the settlements of Late Bronze Age Egypt and its neighbours, in particular the domestic manufacture of glass- and faience goods. Anna completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool in 2014 on “Royal cities of the New Kingdom: A Spatial Analysis of Production and Socio-Economics in Late Bronze Age Egypt”. Prior to that, I studied at the Humboldt Universität, Berlin and the University of Oxford