Menat counterweights were part of elaborate beaded collars to keep them in place. Priests and priestesses invoked deities by rattling the collar’s beads, which provided a pleasing sound.
The Menat shield takes the form of an aegis, composed of a broad collar surmounted by the heads of Tefnut (goddess of moisture) and her consort Shu (god of air). They are two of the nine deities that formed the Great Ennead of Heliopolis, ruled by the creator god Atum who created the world. Tefnut appears as a maned lioness wearing a wig, sun disk, and a uraeus. Shu wears a short wig, false beard, and crown with a modius, uraeus, and tall feathers (now partially destroyed). Together, Shu and Tefnut protected the wearer of the necklace. Cobra serpents flank the part of the counterpoise with an oxyrhynchus fish, associated with Osiris and resurrection, in a papyrus thicket.1
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Cf. WAM 54.1515. ↩︎