Cleveland Museum of Art

Vulture Headdress Inlay

Date

100–1 BCE

Medium

gold and semi-precious stones

Culture

Egypt, Greco-Roman period (332 BCE–395 CE), Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BCE)

Department

Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The vulture headdress was worn by goddesses and queens. This inlay in the form of a vulture headdress has more than 100 stones: lapis lazuli (dark blue), turquoise (light blue), petrified wood (red), and an unidentified white stone painstakingly cut to shape and separated by thin plates of gold. Body, wing, and tail feathers are carefully distinguished in minute detail. When creating this headdress, artisans used numerous semiprecious stones with inset partitions to keep them separate. To ensure that the stones would stay in place, a resin-like material was used as an adhesive.

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