Egyptian Jewellery: Gold, Silver and Cartouches, and How to Buy Without Overpaying

What jewellery is Egypt known for?

Egypt is known for gold and silver jewellery made to order at reasonable workmanship prices, above all the cartouche pendant spelling your name in hieroglyphs. Alongside cartouches you will find ancient symbols such as the ankh, the scarab and the Eye of Horus (our guide to Egyptian symbols explains what each means), the hand-shaped khamsa charm, Coptic crosses and filigree.

Gold also matters enormously to Egyptians themselves. A groom traditionally gives his bride a gift of gold jewellery, the shabka, and gold is a common way for families to save, which is why Cairo's goldsmiths are busy with local customers rather than only tourists. In the south, Nubian jewellery uses bold silver and colourful beadwork, and in Sinai and the Western Desert, Bedouin and Siwan traditions produced heavy silver necklaces, bracelets and disc pendants. Old pieces are now collectors' items; most of what you see in shops is new work in the same styles.

Cairo also has a generation of contemporary jewellery designers who reinterpret pharaonic, Islamic and Coptic motifs, sold in fixed-price boutiques in Zamalek and the city's malls.

What did ancient Egyptian jewellery look like?

Ancient Egyptian jewellery combined gold with semi-precious stones and coloured glass in bold, symbolic designs, and the finest surviving pieces rank among the great treasures of the ancient world. Goldsmiths set carnelian, turquoise and lapis lazuli into gold cells, a technique called cloisonné, and made cheaper versions in faience, a glazed quartz ceramic usually turquoise blue. Turquoise came from mines in Sinai at Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Maghara; lapis lazuli was traded all the way from Afghanistan.

The richest collection is Tutankhamun's: pectorals, collars, earrings, rings and amulets, including a pectoral whose central scarab is carved from yellow-green Libyan desert glass, a natural glass from the Sahara. It is displayed at the Grand Egyptian Museum. The Middle Kingdom jewellery of royal women found at Dahshur and Lahun, with its delicate crowns and pectorals, is arguably finer still; check which museum displays it when you visit, as collections have been moving between Cairo's museums. Modern copies of many of these pieces are sold in the bazaars.

How is gold priced in Egypt?

Gold is sold by weight: you pay the day's price per gram for that karat, plus a workmanship charge per gram or per piece, called the masna'eya. Jewellers display the daily gram price, which follows the world gold price and the exchange rate, and it is the same across a market. What varies is the workmanship charge, which is where comparison and bargaining make sense.

• Karats: 18 karat (75% gold, stamped 750) is the most common for pieces sold to visitors; 21 karat (87.5%) is the traditional Egyptian choice, richer in colour and softer; 24 karat is mainly for bars and coins.
• Ask for both numbers: the weight in grams and the workmanship charge. A price quoted as a single lump sum is impossible to compare.
• Watch the scales: the piece should be weighed in front of you on a digital scale.
• Get a receipt showing weight, karat, gram price, workmanship and total.

Silver works the same way, but the metal is cheap relative to the work, so the workmanship charge is most of what you pay. Because gold prices have risen steeply in recent years, any figure quoted in a guide dates quickly; work from the posted gram price on the day.

How do you order a cartouche?

Choose silver or gold, write your name clearly, check the hieroglyphs on paper before the jeweller starts, and allow one to two days for it to be made. Our guide to cartouches explains what the oval means and how royal names were written; here is the buying side.

• Spelling: hieroglyphs are written by sound, so the jeweller will spell your name phonetically. Agree the signs on paper and keep a photo.
• Style: a flat cut-out pendant is cheapest. Better pieces have each hieroglyph cut and soldered on as a raised sign, sometimes with a contrasting gold-on-silver finish. Double-sided pendants add a second name, or your name in Arabic.
• Thickness: very thin cartouches bend easily; ask for the weight and compare.
• The chain is usually priced separately by weight.

As an indicative guide at the time of writing, a medium sterling-silver cartouche typically costs roughly A$30–90 depending on size and style. A gold one depends entirely on the day's gram price and the weight; small 18-karat pendants commonly run to several hundred Australian dollars.

How do you spot plated metal and fake stones?

Look for a stamped purity mark and the assay office hallmark, test with a small magnet, and treat bright, flawless stones at low prices with suspicion. Egypt requires gold and silver to be tested and stamped by a government assay office, and established jewellers sell hallmarked pieces.

• Magnet: gold and silver are not magnetic. If a pendant jumps to a magnet, it has a base-metal core. Passing the test does not prove it is solid, but failing it settles the matter.
• "Silver" that isn't: nickel silver, sometimes called alpaca, contains no silver at all. Real silver tarnishes gently over time; plated pieces wear through to a different colour at the edges.
• Turquoise and lapis: much of the cheap "turquoise" is dyed howlite or plastic, and "lapis" may be dyed stone. Very even colour and a low price are the clues.
• Coral: avoid it. Red Sea coral is protected, and coral jewellery can be seized.
• "Ancient" scarabs and amulets: genuine antiquities cannot legally be sold or exported. Anything offered as ancient is either a reproduction or illegal.

Where should you buy jewellery?

For gold, go where Egyptians buy it: the goldsmiths' street, the Sagha, beside Khan el-Khalili, with silver and cartouches in the bazaar itself. The Sagha runs off Al-Muizz Street and is lined with jewellers' windows showing the day's price. Compare a few shops on workmanship charges before choosing.

• Khan el-Khalili: silver, cartouches and reproductions of ancient designs, at negotiable prices.
• Aswan souq: Nubian-style silver and beadwork; a good place to see the style before or after visiting a Nubian village.
• Zamalek and malls: contemporary Egyptian designers at fixed prices.
• Hotel jewellers and tour showrooms: convenient and quick with cartouches, but usually dearer; ask for the weight and gram price as you would anywhere.

How do you bring jewellery home?

Keep every receipt, wear or carry valuable pieces in your hand luggage, and remember that jewellery counts towards your duty-free allowance when you return. At the time of writing Australia's general goods allowance for adult returning travellers is A$900; anything over must be declared and may attract duty and GST. Our customs and duty free guide covers Egypt's side, and our planned guide to bringing souvenirs home to Australia covers the return.

Before you fly, photograph expensive pieces with their receipts in case you need to make an insurance claim, and check that your travel insurance covers jewellery bought on the trip.