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Early Greek Jewellery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

R. A. Higgins
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Extract

For a number of reasons the time seems ripe for a fresh appraisal of the jewellery of the Early Iron Age in Greece, between 1100 and 700 B.C.

It is perhaps worth recalling, as a preliminary, the superlative excellence of Mycenaean jewellery, in which the arts of filigree, granulation, inlay, enamelling, and repoussé-work were carried to perfection. When the Mycenaean world finally collapsed about 1100 B.C. after a century of turmoil, it left a very different legacy. There was little time now to spare for the luxuries of life; and jewellery, where it existed at all, was simple in the extreme.

I shall be concerned in this paper with the re-emergence of high-quality jewellery in the post-Mycenaean world. The investigation will be restricted to Attica and Crete, for these districts are by far the most fruitful sources for our period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 64 , November 1969 , pp. 143 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1969

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References

The substance of this article was read to the Hellenic Society on 14 Nov. 1968 andto the British School at Athens, on 23 Apr. 1969.

Acknowledgements

My thanks are due to Mrs. Diane Lee Carroll for more than generous help with the Los Angeles ear-rings, to which she originally drew my attention; to Mr. J. N. Coldstream for providing the chronological background without which this survey could not have been attempted; to Mrs. R. Maxwell-Hyslop for advising me about Oriental jewellery; to Professor Evelyn Lord Smithson for copious information about the ear-rings from the Athenian Agora and for two superb colour-slides of them; and to Miss M. O. Miller for drawing Fig. 1.

I should also like to thank the following for supplying photographs and for giving permission to publish them; the Allard–Pierson Museum, Amsterdam (Plate 37c); the American School of Classical Studies, Athens (Plate 34j–k); the Ashmolean Museum (Plate 37b); the British School at Athens (Plates 43b and 44b); Mrs. Diane Lee Carroll (Plate 39c); Mons. M. Chuzeville (Plate 39a); the German Archaeological Institute, Athens (Plates 35a–b; 38a–e; 42b; 44a); Mr. E. Kofler-Truniger (Plate 41c–d and colour-slides); the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Mr. Jay Bisno (Plates 39b; 40a–b); Miss M. O. Miller (for making good several deficiencies); Professor N. Platon and Frederick Muller Ltd. (Plate 43c, from Crete, p. 113); Professor C. M. Robertson (Plate 43d); and the Trustees of the British Museum (Plates 34a–i; 35c; 36a–b; 37a; 41a–b; 42c).

Abbreviations additional to those in standard use:

BMCJ = British Museum Catalogue of Jewellery (1911).

BMCR = British Museum Catalogue of Finger Rings (1907).

Elgin Jewellery = Higgins, R. A., ‘The Elgin Jewellery’, British Museum Quarterly, xxiii (1961) 101–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

GGP = Coldstream, J. N., Greek Geometric Pottery (1968).Google Scholar

GRJ = Higgins, R. A., Greek and Roman Jewellery (1961).Google Scholar

Kerameikos = Kerameikos, Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen (from 1939).

Ohly = Ohly, D., Griechische Goldbleche des 8. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (1953).Google Scholar

Reichel = Reichel, W., Griechisches Goldrelief (1942).Google Scholar

SCE = Swedish Cyprus Expedition.

1 See GRJ 68 ff.

2 PAE 1953–63. Kenna, V. E. G., Χαριστήριον εἰς Άναστάσιον K. Ὀρλάνδον (1966) 320 ff.Google Scholar Jewellery: bull's head ear-ring from T. 11, as SCE i, pl. iii and BMCJ no. 534; crescent-shaped pendants from Ts. 49 and 147 as BMCJ no. 615; disc-pendants from T. 147 as BMCJ no. 616; carnelian club-shaped beads from T. 92 as BMCJ no. 639 and Alexander, C., Jewelry (1928) pl. iii, top.Google Scholar

3 Kerameikos i. 86, fig. 5.

4 BMCR no. 6. L. of bezel 2·8 cm.

5 Kerameikos i. 82.

6 BMCR no. 1219. Diam. 2·9 cm. See also Kerameikos i. 85; BSA xxiii (1918–19) 17 ff.

7 Elgin Jewellery, no. 11; GRJ pl. 13 B. Diam. 1·9 cm.

8 Elgin Jewellery, passim.

9 Elgin Jewellery, no. 14. Diam. 2 cm. See also GRJ 93.

10 Elgin Jewellery, nos. 29, 34, 31, 33. Av. diam. 2 cm. See also Kerameikos, v, pt. 1, pl. 159, M 44–46, M 72–73; GRJ 93.

11 Elgin Jewellery, no. 2. L. 31 cm. See also Kerameikos v, pt. 1, pl. 158, top.

12 Hesperia xxxvii (1968) 77 ff.

13 See Harden, D. B., The Phoenicians (London, 1962) 208 ff.Google Scholar and refs.

14 Unpublished, in London, Reg. no. 81. 7–19. 4.

15 For discs, Hesperia xxxvi (1968) 114. For spacers, SCE ii, pl. xviii, Amathus T. 12, no. 12.

16 AE 1898, 103. GGP 16. Reichel, no. 35. W. 2·4 cm.

17 ADelt. xxi (1966) pt. B. 1, pl. 95.

18 AE 1898, 105. GGP 21. Reichel, no. 34. W. 3 cm.

19 BMCJ no. 1240. W. 2·6 cm.

20 Dunand, M., Fouilles de Byblos, ii (1954) pl. 122, no. 14451.Google Scholar

21 Alexander, C., Jewelry (1928)Google Scholar, fig. 3. Said to come from Southern Italy. I would suggest Cumae as the find-spot; cf. MA xxii (1913) 243, fig. 80, and 295, figs. 114 and 115.

22 Od. xv. 460.

23 See Dunbabin, T. J., The Greeks and their Eastern Neighbours (1957) 41.Google Scholar

24 Pollak, L., Klassisch-Antike Goldschmiedearbeiten … von Nelidow (1903) pl. x, no. 182. H. 5·2 cm.Google Scholar

25 Hadaczek, K., Der Ohrschmuck der Griechen und Etrusker (1903) 10, fig. 14.Google Scholar

26 Elgin Jewellery, nos. 44–7. GRJ, pl. 13 D. L. 4·5 and 5·6 cm.

27 GRJ 31.

28 Kerameikos v, pt. 1, pls. 159, 160.

29 JHS li (1931) 167, fig. 4.

30 BSA xviii (1911–12) 24.

31 Blinkenberg, C., Fibules grecques et orientales (1926) 169, fig. 199.Google Scholar

32 ADelt. xxi (1966) pt. B 1, 97 f.

33 BMCJ no. 1219 L. 36·5 cm.

34 Stathatou Coll. iii. 131. Cf. Reichel, nos. 1–9; Ohly, nnos. A 1–14.

35 Ashmolean, no. 1921.1105. L. 32·8cm. Cf. Reichel, nos. 10–31; Ohly, nos. A 15–32.

36 Allard-Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, no. 397. Reichel, no. 11. Ohly, no. A 19. L. 37·7 cm.

37 Reichel, no. 33. GRJ pl. 14 C-F. W. of rectangular plaques, c. 4 cm.

38 See Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston lxviii (1943) 44.

39 Ergon 1962, 30.

40 Louvre, Cat. nos. 142–3. Mon. Piot ix (1902–3) 148. Diam. of cones, 5·5 cm.

41 Payne, H. G. G., Perachora i (1940) pl. 18:16–18 (Akraia)Google Scholar; pls. 83:1 and 84:13 (Linienia). The example from Rheneia, in Mykonos, is unpublished.

42 Unpublished, but see GRJ 99. Diam. of cones, 2·7 cm.; of discs, 2·8 cm.

43 Elgin Jewellery, nos. 18—19. Diam. of discs, 2–9 cm.

44 Schefold, K., Meisterwerke griechischer Kunst (1960)Google Scholar no. 554. Diam. of discs, 2·7 cm.

45 Délos xviii. 291, fig. 342; pl. 87, fig. 740. Diam. 3·2 cm.

46 Hadaczek, op. cit. 12, fig. 17.

47 Délos xviii. 303, fig. 371; pl. 88, fig. 766. W. 7·5 cm.

48 Higgins, R. A., Greek Terracottas (1967) pl. 9 D.Google Scholar

49 ADelt vi (1920–1) 136, fig. 10. Reichel, no. 32. GRJ, pl. 13 F. L. 10 cm.

50 Elgin Jewellery, nos. 20–5. W. of large bead (no. 25), 1·9 cm.

50a While this article was in the press I did, however, seethree gold rosettes in the new Museum at Brauron, from Brauron, which I would date in the seventh century. Whether they were made locally or were imported from Crete or Rhodes, I cannot say.

51 AE 1904, 50, fig. 13.

52 PAE i960, pl. 244 B.

53 SCE i, pl. iii; BMCJ, no. 534.

54 AM lv (1930) pl. ii, 4 and 5.

55 Brock, J. K., Fortetsa (1957)Google Scholarpassim.

56 JHS lxiv (1944) 84 ff. BSA xlix (1954) 215 ff. GRJ 104, 207, and refs.

57 BSA lxii (1967) 57 ff.

58 Ibid. 68, no. 3. 28 × 2·8 cm.

59 Reichel, no. 23, and refs. L. 29 cm.

60 Brock, op. cit. 167, pl. 37, no. 578.

61 BSA lxii (1967) 68, no. 1. W. 6·8 cm.

62 ADelt xxi (1966) pt. B 1, 97.

63 See n. 13 above.

64 BSA xliii (1948) 121, pl. 46, no. G4. BSA 1 (1955)37. L. 4 cm.

65 Hall, E. H., Vrokastro (1914) 138, fig. 82.Google Scholar

66 Rosenberg, M., Geschichte der Goldschmiedekunst … Granulation (1915) 71Google Scholar, figs. 118, 119.

67 BSA lxii (1967), 68, no. 2. W. 5·5 cm.

68 Ibid. 62 and 69, no. 19. W. 2·9 cm.

69 Ibid. 62 n. 4. Woolley, L., Barnett, R. D., Carchemish iii, pl. B35d.Google Scholar

70 BSA lxii (1967) 69, no. 18. W. 4·4 cm. For later versions, GRJ 105 f.

71 Reichel, no. 47. Greatest W. 4·5 cm.

72 von Luschan, F., Die Kleinfunde von Sendschirli (1943) pls. 46g and 47d.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Richter, G. M. A., Korai (1968) figs. 70–5.Google Scholar

74 Museo Italiano ii. 750, bottom right. Demargne, P., La Crète dédalique (1947) 127 and n. 5.Google Scholar

75 BSA viii (1901–2) 243, fig. 11. L. of bezel, 2·8 cm.

76 Cf. BMCJ, nos. 1309–10.

77 Clara Rhodos iii. 53.

78 GRJ 104–14; wire ear-rings, diadem rosettes, Dedalic head pendants, bee pendants.

79 ADelt xxii (1967), pt. B 1, pl. 78 γ and δ.

80 Op. cit. pl. 87 β.

81 Op. cit. pl. 80 α and β (bottom).

82 Op. cit. pl. 80 β (top).