LOT 0073

Greek Carnelian Bead with Gold End Caps

HELLENISTIC, 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D.

2 3/8 in. (17.44 grams, 60 mm).

Columnar bead with sheet-gold cap to each end, each with beaded circlets and applied granule clusters, domed end with loop; possibly assembled.

Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.

Cf. a pair of gold disc and sphere-drop earrings of the Late Hellenistic Period in a similar style and decoration, in Ogden, J., Gold Jewellery in Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Egypt, in two volumes, Volume 2 – figures, Durham, 1990, fig.268.

The very elaborate versions of earrings with large domes and pendants composed of clusters of hollow spheres and granulation are most typically Romano-Syrian, but they begin to be produced in the Late Hellenistic Age. They were diffused in the Levant, Egypt and on the frontier area between the Roman and the Arsacid Empire.