ANCIENT JEWELLERY

In antiquity and the classical period, individual pieces of jewellery were crafted with an eye for tranquillity and balance. Between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, master craftsmen’s workshops moved beyond Greece – to Cyprus, southern Italy, Thrace, and the Black Sea. The material culture there had its distinctive characteristics, which correlated with the blending of the region’s own style with neighbouring nations’ cultures and Greek taste. In the Hellenistic period, centres of jewellery production in the Bosporus were primarily concentrated in Panticapaeum. The rings, earrings, gold beads, pendants, appliques and other items presented here represent types of jewellery from the Hellenistic period, Graeco-Roman style, and Roman times.

Jewellery was more opulent and complex in the Hellenistic period than in the classical period. Stone inlay, glass paste, and enamelling were all popular. New elements included realistically executed animal and human head terminals on bracelets, necklaces, earrings and rings. Figures of Eros, the goddess Nike, maenads, and small amphorae and pyramids also appeared. Many of these themes remained up until the Graeco-Roman period (1st century BCE – 2nd century CE).

Typical Roman jewellery focused on abstraction, eschewing fine techniques and naturalist elements, whether figurative or foliage; the overall impression is cruder, emphasising the sheer quantity and value of the material. It was during this period that coins were are also used in jewellery.

Jewellery fashioned from gold, silver, and bronze drew from the shapes and decorative techniques (including filigree, granulation, hammering, and engraving) used in jewellery from ancient Eastern cultures. The next major shift in new technical processes, goldsmithing techniques, and shapes did not occur until the “Orientalising” revolution of the 8th century BCE. This stage was particularly prominent in northern Italy, in the jewellery craftsmanship of the Etruscans. The foundations stem from the traditions of the local Villanovan culture of the early Iron Age, with influences flowing in from the eastern Mediterranean. Etruscan goldsmithing is considered to have reached its prime between the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, when almost microscopic granulation and filigree prevailed in jewellery decoration, as known from tombstones in Caere, Vulci, Tarquinia, Marsiliana d'Albegna, Chiusi, Vetulonium, Orvieto and other locations. The group of bronze fibulae in the Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen date from that period. Our collections also include southern Italian (Apulian) spectacle fibulae with figure‑of‑eight loops; northern Etruscan sanguisuga (“leech”) and navicella (“little boat”) type one-piece fibulae with short and extended catchplates, some with formed terminals; navicella vuota bow fibulae with a swollen body or with fins; and dragon and snake fibulae. The collections also contain specimens of fibulae with figurative lioness bodies from the Etruscan Orientalising period. Bronze fibulae were not luxurious jewellery only for the rich; indeed they appear quite frequently even in common tombs for women and men. (DB)