The jewelry in this gallery was found in one of the most romantically situated tombs in Egypt. It was cut into the floor of a small canyon, hidden in the cliffs of a huge system of dry riverbeds that drain the high desert south of the Valley of the Kings. Here, in almost total seclusion, three minor wives of the great eighteenth-dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III, were buried. The women had foreign names. They probably came from western Asia, to bolster political ties between Egypt and some of the local rulers in what is now Syria.

The three mummies were fitted out with the golden sandals you see here. Look at them closely. The sheet gold has been incised to imitate leatherwork, mimicking the sandals worn in life. The mummies’ toes and fingers were covered by the finely incised gold stalls. Even the cuticles around the finger and toenails are indicated. Gold was believed to be the skin of the gods. In burials, it guaranteed eternal life to the deceased.