Egyptian figurine - amber?

Hello

Today I have bought a small Egyptian figurine of a cat(Gestat?) sat on a scarab beetle.

It appears, given the blacklight flourescence, to be made from amber. But I don't want to fool myself, so please take a look.

59 grams, 10.5 cm height

 

I think more likely horn mate.

I had a bangle that looked the same and went that colour, and it was made of horn

 

Horn might be right, I don't have any other horn pieces to compare to right now. Have you ever seen those swirling patterns in horn before?

 

I have in horn ratsy, but not in amber

 

Give it a good rub Amber would smell sweet woody, horn would be a bit like singed hair

 

Bastet.

@Any Jewelry will get here & probably know just what we're looking at. Meanwhile, I'm guessing it is amber, based on appearance under both lighting situations (horn would not glow green under UV), but what you might call reconstituted amber, little pieces melted together & molded. I have seen those thready swirls in amber before.

 

If you give amber a good rub it develops a lot of static electricity & will attract light things like fur or small bits of paper.

 

Whatever it is, it is a beauty.
I would try the tests suggested by Bronwen and Davey. Rubbing it is easy, so do that first.
The salt water test is 7 teaspoons of salt dissolved in 300 ml of water. Unfortunately polystyrene (swirly!) and copal also float.

Another method is holding a cotton bud drenched in acetone against the bottom for a minute or so. Plastics will become tacky, amber won't.

 

Forgot to say, if you rub amber long enough, it will smell of pine. It is fossilised tree resin.

 

Okay, I have done all the tests and I'm still stuck. The smell tests I always do badly with, I will try again with those tomorrow.

Luckily I do have some genuine amber beads in my jewellery box, so I'm using those as my control group.

Also, I think this may be a dog, not a cat?

Positive with the static test, I was able to pick up tissue paper with the beads and the figure.

Negative with the saltwater test. Followed AJ's measurements. Bead floats, figure doesn't. , Picture below

I don't have acetone but I will pick some up tomorrow. Its lucky I don't own anything that produces a flame. I am frustrated and would have stuck a pin in it by now.

 

There’s examples around stating Amber dust cast resin!
Not heard of that before but it’s feasible. Agree with Bronwen it’s the Egyptian cat Bastet.

 

That would be Gestat?

 

Horn doesn't glow like that under UV. Amber does, be it reconstituted or not.

Absolutely Bastet, it's a replica of a statue in the Cairo museum.
(Cue Elisabeth Peters now)

 

This is the pics of the horn bangle under uv that made me think it might be horn

 

Interesting how dramatically the horn changes appearance under the UV light, but I'm not seeing the green of amber.

 

Its lovely but I don’t have anything helpful to add.

However, my cat is sitting here and insists it is most definitely an Egyptian cat that was worshiped way back when things were the way they are supposed to be ;- )

 

It looks celluloid to me, charlie, that swirly pattern is not very horn like. Celluloid also fluoresces, horn hardly fluoresces.
Here is a detail of my Dutch carved celluloid comb under UV light:



The comb is darker than your bangle, so the fluorecence is different, this is it in natural light:


A box of mostly horn bangles and cuffs, all horn on the left, the thick ivory coloured one on the right is celluloid:


The same box in UV light (battery is dying):

 

And then there are of course those special Indian horns, with glow in the dark bands to prevent nighttime traffic accidents:

 

Not amber, even amber figurines float.
Please don't do the acetone test, the base could stay tacky for long, and you have your negative proof with the float test now. Definitely not amber. The swirls were a giveaway imo.