Join the dialogue with Egyptologist Dr Colleen Darnel & The Zay Initiatives founder Dr Reem El Mutwalli. “Some of the earliest artifacts from the Nile Valley are jewelry: hippopotamus ivory bracelets, stone amulets, and shell necklaces buried with men and women who lived between 4000 and 3000 BCE. With the development of more complex art and the invention of the hieroglyphic scripts, by around 3000 BCE we can start to assign definite meanings to jewelry that included its role as a form of magical protection for the wearer. Scarab amulets take the shape of a dung beetle, which in hieroglyphs writes kheper “to transform” – by wearing a scarab, an Egyptian adorned their body with the transformative power of the sun god. Other amulets could take the shape of hieroglyphs: “life” (an ankh), “protection” (sa-sign), or jewelry could even write entire sentences, like the amuletic gold necklaces of princess Sathathoriunet. Magical spells in ancient Egypt could be accompanied by bodily adornment: drawing images on the skin, wearing amulets, or even tying on a papyrus on the body.” There is so much to discuss register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/117243615811 to be part of it.