Tutankhamun's vulture necklace

When the kingdom of Upper Egypt conquered predynastic Lower Egyptian kingdom and the two crowns were united, it was natural that the principal deities of the conquerors should accompany and expand their kingdoms accordingly. One of these deities Nekhbet was the vulture-goddess, whose shrine was Nekheb (Elkhab) on the eastern bank of the Nile, opposite Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), the capital of the Kings in Upper Egypt, whose patron god was Horus. Most likely, it was the proximity to the capital of Nekheb the first that it is desirable that local leaders to recognize the goddess in return for recognition, they received his protection. In his capacity as protector royal, she could not fail to gain kudos from the successful conquest of his protege, Menes. His position as patron goddess of the kings of United Egypt was firmly established in the early Dynastic period and was unchanged by political and religious changes, except in the Amarna period, throughout history Egyptian.

The flexible gold necklace, which represents the vulture Nekhbet, the goddess was placed on the chest of the mummy of King so it covered the whole of the chest and extended upwards on the shoulders. The long wings, set in a circular, are divided into districts, which are composed of 250 segments, with feathers on the back engraved and inlaid on the front with colored glass in imitation of turquoise, jasper and lapis lazuli. The segments were held together by son who passed through small golden eyes protruding from their upper and lower edges. On one side of each segment, except in the district known as blankets least - at the top of the wing near the body - there is a border of gold beads that divides minute feathers of those of its neighbor . The bird's body is embedded in the same way as the coverts, while the tail feathers resemble the primary and secondary districts wings. Both the beak and the eye in the head are made of delicately carved obsidian. In each of the bird's talons grasps the hieroglyphic sign shen, reading and inlaid blue glass. A counterweight shaped flowers mankhet, which was attached by the son of Gold eyelets at the rear wings, attached to the back of the mummy.
Necklaces and collars were placed on Egyptian mummies, not as ornaments, but to provide magical protection. They were also represented on the cartonnage covers of mummies and on the lids of anthropoid coffins. Among the many charms collar painted on the walls of rectangular wooden coffins dating from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000 BC) are four gold and encrusted on the outer surface shaped to represent a hawk, vulture, cobra wings, combined and the vulture and the cobra. Tutankhamun's mummy, which was more than half a millennium later in the date of these coffins, was equipped with all these necklaces inlaid with the exception of the neck of the cobra, in addition to all the four leaf necklaces gold without inlay. They were purely funeral of character and very different from that of pearl necklaces or gold worn in life.