Roman Gold Earrings with Granulation

£ 1,900.00

An excellent pair of Ancient Roman gold earrings featuring a large gold hoop secured by a hook and eye closure. Each gold hoop displays a large, convex boss enriched with a twisting design, which leads up to a triple spiral filigree. A pyramid of seven large hollow pellets has been added to the bottom of each hoop. Clusters of smaller granules further adorn the pyramid, creating an intricate and layered composition.

Date: Circa 2nd - 3rd Century AD
Provenance: From a private Swiss collection, acquired between 1950s-1970s.
Condition: Very fine condition. Some tarnishing and encrustations to the surface. Signs of wear as consistent with age, such as indentations to the bosses and granules, as well as small cracks to the granules.
SKU: RES-267 Categories: , Tags: , ,

In Ancient Roman society, jewellery was an essential accessory, providing the wearer with a public display of their wealth, social status, and identity. Gold and silver pieces were worn by the wealthier members of Roman society, while bronze and other metals provided a cheaper alternative for lower social classes. Roman jewellery at first followed the trends set by the Etruscans, employing the use of gold and glass beads. As the power and spread of the Roman Empire increased, jewellery designs became increasingly elaborate, utilising the many different materials, techniques, and styles found across the expanding empire, particularly from Greece, Egypt, North Africa, and the Orient. Earrings are known as one of the first forms of jewellery, found adorning both men and women as early as the Bronze Age. The wide range of natural resources enabled artisans to create ostentatious jewellery using a diverse selection of materials: this increasingly included sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, garnet and amber from India, and pearls (which were particularly prized). Pliny the Elder even attested to the popularity of earrings, with pearl earrings being especially popular among women.

To discover more about jewellery in the Roman Empire, please see our relevant blog post: Jewellery In Antiquity.

Weight 9.29 g
Dimensions L 1.5 x W 3 x H 5 cm
Region

Southern Europe

Metal

Gold

Reference: For a similar item, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, item 08.251.5, .6

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