Two ornaments common in ancient Egypt are not found in use today. One is the pectoral, a great bejeweled breastpiece, usually hung from the neck. The other is the golden wig cover. The great men and women of the eighteenth century B.C. wore long black wigs (in contrast to the great men of the eighteenth century A.D.; George Washington’s inaugural wig, was, of course, powdered white). Close-fitting over these black wigs were joined rows of gold bands or medallions, beaten fine, fastened together, forming a complete cover that reached to the shoulders. The bands bore hieroglyphics, the medallions were usually shaped like heads of man or beast. One other difference from later times: for the snuffbox of the eighteenth century A.D., or the cigarette lighter of the twentieth, society folk in ancient Egypt carried a perfume box. The Egyptians had many rings, including signet rings. These were intaglios; that is, the design was cut into, hollowed out of, the metal or stone, so that when the ring was pressed on clay or wax it would leave a raised design like a cameo. The design might be a god, or a sacred animal such as a scarab or a sphinx, usually with an indication of the identity of the owner. Thus the King’s seal, and especially the King’s signet ring if borne by a messenger, carried the royal authority. Jezebel, wife of Ahab, King of the Israelites, used the seal of her royal spouse on the letters she wrote to destroy Naboth, whose vineyard they coveted. The Israelites, indeed, wore rings on their fingers, in their nostrils, in their ears, and we are told that when they walked there was a tinkling about their feet. They also wore a gem pressed into the soft side of the nostril, a favorite spot for display through the Near East, still adorned by a gem among the Bedouins and the Hindus of today. The Israelites gave of these jewels in great quantity to adorn the Tabernacle that was built in the wilderness—and also for the making of the Golden Calf. Legend has it that Solomon’s wisdom emanated from a magic ring. One day he carelessly left this ring behind him at the bath, and with the water of his bath it was thrown into the sea. Solomon retained enough wisdom to suspend his legal court for forty days, after which the ring came back to him in the stomach of a fish served at his table. A similar story of a jewel returned in the belly of a fish is told by Polycrates, tyrant of Samos in 530 B.C. Like stories occur in _The Thousand and One Nights_; and the coat of arms of the city of Glasgow contains a salmon with a ring in its mouth, memorializing the occasion when St. Kentigern from the fish’s mouth restored to an early queen her ring and her reputation.