REMARKS ON THE NAME OF THE WESEKH-COLLAR IN THE OLD KINGDOM

Abstract

This paper examines the different early attestations of the name of the broad collar, wesekh. The earlier studies on this collar, based on the Berlin dictionary, revealed that the name of this broad collar is first attested in the Middle Kingdom. However, studies by C. Ziegler[1] and E. Brovarski,[2] discuss an earlier attestation of the name in the chapel of Akhethotep (Louvre E 10958 [A]) of the Fifth Dynasty. Nevertheless, they did not track the former points of view regarding the name of the broad collar, nor did they discuss the other attestations,[3] as these were not their primary focus. This paper presents different perspectives on the name of the wesekh-collar, examining the various attestations in their contexts. It explores the other forms of writing the name, its determinative, and whether the way of writing the name differs from one cemetery to another. It also evaluates whether nbw and xAt indicate the wesekh-collar and looks at the relationship between the word and the image.

Keywords

• wesekh-collar
• collar of beads
• jewellery
• old kingdom
• pepi ii
• deshri
• saqqara