MISS EGYPT  YARA NAOUM

An Egyptian model, Yara Naoum won the Miss Egypt Universe crown and represented her country at the Miss Universe 2008 pageant.

BEAUTY SECRETS OF THE ancient Egyptians

The ancient Egyptians described their native country as "the black land," recognizing it as a font of fertile abundance in contrast to the harsh, unyielding deserts surrounding them. This fertility applied to more than just agriculture. The inventiveness and creativity of ancient Egypt still exerts influence and inspires awe today. The ancient Egyptians were trailblazers in many fields, but particularly in the field of beauty. Pioneers in the arts of adornment, including cosmetics and tattooing, they did not limit themselves to enhancement of only the body's natural charms. The ancient Egyptians were also brilliant innovators in the creation of jewelry.

The ancient Egyptians loved ornamentation. Jewelry was designed, crafted and worn with great care thought and care. In their typical holistic fashion, fine jewelry was valued not only for beauty but also for the magical and spiritual protection it provided for its wearer. Did the concept of purely ornamental adornment exist for the ancients? Did they make that distinction between amulets and jewelry? Many anthropologists believe not.

Minerals and metals were identified with specific deities as well as with specific spiritual and therapeutic values. Thus their words for lapis lazuli and turquoise were synonymous with joy and delight, respectively. Copper and malachite were identified with Hathor, gold connected to the solar deity.

The Egyptians did not confine themselves to a limited selection of materials: a very wide variety of minerals were crafted into jewelry including amethyst, cornelian, jasper, onyx and quartz crystal. Today these stones are classified as semi-precious versus precious gems like diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds. How or even whether the Egyptians classified these gems remains unknown: the distinction between precious and semi-precious, for us, has largely to do with scarcity and economic value. Connections between availability and economic value did also exist in ancient Egypt but we cannot assume that modern cultures and ancient Egypt share the same perceptions of what was precious. For instance, during many periods of Egyptian history, silver was valued more highly than gold, due to its relative scarcity. Just as in today's world, silver holds less economic value than gold, perhaps many of what are now considered semi-precious gems may have been perceived as quite rare and valuable in old Egypt. Many were obtained only with great effort and cost: lapis lazuli, which held great spiritual significance for the Egyptians was not obtained locally but imported largely from what is now Afghanistan.

Yet as regards the production of jewelry, the Egyptians seemed to have also been faced with some purely practical concerns: what to do should a desired gemstone be unattainable, unavailable or perhaps unaffordable? In typical ingenuous and innovative fashion, the Egyptians invented the art of the fabulous fake. The ancient artisans became so adept at crafting glass bead versions of precious stones that it can be difficult to distinguish the mimics from authentic emeralds, pearls and tigers-eye.

This innovation depended upon yet another revolutionary legacy from ancient Egypt: the development of glass. Debate ranges among modern scholars as to whether glass was initially manufactured in Egypt or in Mesopotamia (or whether it arose in both nations simultaneously yet independently.) Certainly the roots of glass in Egypt are ancient. Solid glass beads have been found in Egypt dating from 4000 BCE. According to bead experts Chris and Janie Filstrup, very simple beads consisting of a true glass glaze over a clay or stone cane have been discovered in Egypt dating back to 12,000BCE.

From their earliest roots, regardless of location, beads have held a spiritual and magical component. The English word bead, for instance, derives from the Old English bidden, meaning, "to pray." The Egyptian hieroglyph for bead also indicated "luck."

Glass making eventually evolved into a sophisticated art in Egypt, with shapes and hues becoming increasingly intricate. To the basic formula of sand (silica), soda and lime, cobalt was added to create a blue shade, copper for green, tin was used to produce a milky white while the addition of gold created red. The willingness to incorporate gold into a formula to enhance the beauty of glass indicates that glass was not merely considered a substitute for something precious, but was valuable in its own right.

Although fine glass would be created elsewhere (the glassblowers of ancient Hebron were considered brilliant innovators, for instance), the glass beads of Egypt were consistently perceived as the finest of the ancient world. Small, easy to transport yet valuable, they became favored cargo of far-ranging Phoenician traders; glass beads were exported all over the ancient world. Egyptian glass beads have been discovered as far afield as China.

The Egyptians did not find the same uses for glass that we do today. Glass was not used for windows or doors. Mirrors were made from polished copper. Cups, perfume "bottles" and unguent pots were most typically carved from alabaster or other stone. Glass was almost exclusively used for ornamentation of the body. Among the finest existing specimens of the Egyptian glassmakers' art are treasures found in King Tutankhamun's tomb. The famed vulture collar, for instance, laid upon the mummies' chest, was inlaid with hundreds of pieces of colored glass. (The Egyptians were also masters of cloisonné, fine inlay work.) Tutankhamun's "necklace of the sun" was created from glass beads intermingled with those formed from gold and cornelian.

MISS EYGPT 2004