243 13 ENTANGLED, CONNECTED OR PROTECTED? The power of knots and knotting in ancient Egypt. Willeke Wendrich he excavations of Barry Kemp in the Amarna workmen’s village yielded many interesting insights in the daily life of the inhabitants of this New Kingdom settlement. One of the objects that gave a tantalizing glimpse of practices of which we are not otherwise aware is a knotted circular object found in the Eighteenth Dynasty refuse dump in the quarry area south of the workmen’s village. 1 hese knots probably were not just decorative, but carried a very speciic meaning and the object may have functioned as an amuletic bracelet. It was made of ine lax yarn, which was spun in s-direction, the normal spinning direction for lax in Pharaonic Egypt. It is unclear whether the material was prepared speciically for the bracelet. he knots, however, are quite remarkable, as is the looped string holding a bunch of very ine green dyed yarn (see Fig. 1). 2 To understand the potential meaning of this bracelet one needs to look into the amuletic function of knots. Fig. 1. Line drawing of the amuletic knotted bracelet found at the workmen’s village at Tell el-Amarna. Knotting has a range of functions in the sphere of Egyptian religion/ magic/mythology/medicine, four terms which in European thinking are quite disparate, but should be considered as a closely knitted complex in the context of ancient Egypt. he terminology for knotting and the diferent meanings that knotting has in this complex have been dwelled upon by diferent authors (Jacq 1985, 57–9; Lexa 1925, 95–8; Murray 1922; Ogdon