- Pendant
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Pendant
- Place of origin:
Crimea (made)
Kerch (discovered) - Date:
350 BC - 300 BC (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown
- Materials and Techniques:
sheet gold, embossed and chased
- Museum number:
8487-1863
- Gallery location:
Jewellery, Rooms 91, The William and Judith Bollinger Gallery, case 2, shelf C, box 4
This pendant is made in front and back halves. The details of the face and jewellery are finely chased. The rosette earrings worn by the woman were once enamelled. Her eyes may also have been enamelled. A necklace of one row of grains is tied around her neck. The hair is brushed up from the brow, gathered at the back in a hair net chased with rosettes. She wears a diadem (stéphanê) embossed with palmettes and lotus flowers. At the top of her head, a hoop is inserted. It indicates that this head was worn as a pendant, probably on an earring.
It is difficult to identify the woman. Because she wears a diadem, she maybe associated with the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus, Olympian queen and goddess of marriage. She could also be Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.
A number of similar head pendants have been found in South Russia. This was was found at Kerch, in Crimea.
