Item Bonomi MSS 3.2 (recto) - Note on signet rings

1 item

Note on signet rings:

• ink text on paper
• loose
• 13.1 x 21.3 cm
• [page number] '36'
• [text]:

'Signet ring of fine gold weighing nearly 3 sovereigns

bearing the name of Shufu the (Suphis) of the Greeks

This remarkable piece of antiquity is in the highest state

preservation and said to have been found at Gezeh

in a tomb near that to the excavation of Col Campbell The work

in The style of the hieroglyphics is perfectly that of those

sculptors hieroglyphics of the tombs about the

great pyramid all the details are eminently executed

The heaven is engraved with minute stars; The Fox or Jackall has

significant lines within its con[t]our; The hatchets have

their handles bound with thongs as usual in the sculptures; The volumes have the

string that binds them differently hanging below the

roll differently placed from any example in sculptured or

painted hierogs in the tombs; The determinative for country

is studded with dots representing the sand of the mountainous

margins of the side valley of Egypt The sign [F35] has the

tongue and semilunar mark of the longer examples as also

the vase in the shape of the heart. The Name is surmounted

by the usual globe and feathers decorated in the usual way except

that the lines are more horizontal than in the sculptured examples,

and the ring of The cartouch is engraved with lines representing

a rope of of which decoration I know no of the line inclosing

the hieroglyphics of a royal name I know of no example but

this; the [Aa1] in the name is placed as in the tombs not in

the centre as of the cartouch; the chickens have their unfledged

wings The serastes its horns to be seen only with the magnifying

glass Of the variations in from the usual made of representing

a volume and the inclosure of Royal names are circumstances

favorable to the genuineness of this remarkable piece of antiquity

for when taken into consideration with the style of the work which

is infinitely more difficult to imitate than little little x(?)

in which details from in which the fabricator would not have

ventured to differ from the known examples'

Copyright Griffith Institute, University of Oxford

• Bonomi, Joseph, Catalogue of a collection of Egyptian antiquities, the property of Henry Abbott. Cairo: [s.n.], 1846 (OEB 134900), p. 31-32.