Egyptian Scarab Brooch

Description

For fans of ancient Egypt, this Egyptian Revival Faience Scarab Brooch is a fun and fashionable way to pay tribute to your favorite ancient culture. In faience & silver-tone metal, it's an affordable luxury that's packed with history.

Let's break it down:

1) Egyptian Revival - Egyptian Revival pieces became the rage in the late 1800s and continued with the discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb in the 1920s. It happened again in the 60s and the late 70/80s then when the Treasures of King Tut went on tour in the US. Look up comedian Steve Martin's 1978 hit song. You could call it an Egyptian Revival-Revival. 

Additionally, when these Egyptian Revival-Revival pieces were made, they were often big costume pieces with Victorian era flourishes, just like this one.

2) Faeince - The scarab here is made of faience. Faience was a type of ceramic used in Ancient Egypt from about 4000BCE. It's made from natron (a type of salt found in dry lakebeds) along with sand, lime, and crushed copper for that blue-green color. This unique non-clay ceramic paste self-glazes when it's fired because of alkali salts and metal oxides that rise to the surface of the piece, forming a glassy top. The effect is called efflorescence and it's pretty cool. 

3) Scarab - The scarab was the Ancient Egyptian symbol for life/afterlife (birth/death/resurrection), transformation and regeneration. In jewelry it's a protective symbol against the dangers of the afterlife.

Stone: Faience

Metal: Silver-tone base metal, possibly including Zinc, Nickel and/or Tin