The silver used to make an ancient Egyptian queen's bracelets came from Greece, a new analysis finds, offering insight into the Old Kingdom's trade networks.
Bracelets found in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian queen Hetepheres I — the mother of Khufu, the pharaoh who commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza — reveal new information about the trade networks that once linked the Old Kingdom to Greece.
After analyzing samples taken from the jewelry, an international team of archaeologists determined that the bracelets contained copper, gold and lead. There were also inlays made using semiprecious gemstones such as turquoise, lapis lazuli and carnelian, which were common features in ancient Egyptian jewelry, according to a statement.
However, the pieces, including one depicting a butterfly, also contained traces of silver, despite there not being any known local sources of the precious metal in ancient Egypt in 2600 B.C., when the items were crafted. The team looked at the ratio of isotopes — atoms that have different numbers of neutrons than usual in their nuclei — in the lead.
It's likely that the silver came through the port of Byblos in what is now Lebanon, said the researchers, who noted that Byblos tombs from the late fourth millennium have many silver objects and that there was activity between this port and Egypt at the time. The silver on the bracelets is the first evidence of long-distance exchange between Egypt and Greece, they added.
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