Skip to content

Segmented jewelry. Necklace or a diadem?

This post is about segmented jewelry with a more or less known purpose, which could have been worn as a necklace, diadem (headband), or a headdress decoration like those from Hatra and Palmyra sculptured female portraits. Some of these jewels could, in my opinion, also be worn as different parts of an outfit, used as multifunctional jewelry.

This compilation is also intended to show various ways and techniques of combining decorative elements. We have examples from the Black Sea of using the same ornaments as jewelry and to decorate a horse’s harness.

This three-piece element is believed to have been part of the necklace. Its length is 5,5 cm, the parts are small, joined with hinges.
Roman, 2nd-3rd century, place of origin is not given.

“Three jewellery elements from a necklace, consisting of three oval boxed settings with small pearls at the corners, containing an amethyst, amethystine garnet and the other with a topaz, the setting with the topaz is joined to one of the amethyst settings.”

Rhayader Hoard, Roman Britain (Wales), 1st-2nd century. In the British Museum database shown in two separated records. There are 9 inlayed rectangular elements in total.

In the British Museum, Inv. no. 1900,1122.3 https://www.britishmuseum.org

From the museum description: “Gold bracelet or neck ornament fragment, consisting of (…) quadrangular plates joined by pairs of hooks and eyes which are hidden by thin plates. Each of the large plates has a band of raised wirework and an oval setting for stones, two flat carnelians and two convex blue glass paste.”

Judging from the photo below, total length is about 30 cm, so it is definitely too long for a bracelet.
With such joining loops, additionally hidden under the connecting plates, it would be bad to arrange as a necklace. So maybe it was a diadem?

Inv. no. 1900,1122.2
https://www.britishmuseum.org

Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C. Byzantine Collection BZ.1975.7.T1998
4th century
https://colorsandstones.eu
Gold necklace with garnets, amber and glass; 2nd century CE.
The Astrakhan Museum-Reserve [read more]

“Necklaces of this kind were made in many centers, including Panticapaeum, Olbia, Chersonese, the cities of the Eastern Black Sea region, and were also common in Rome and the Roman provinces.”

Part of an ornament. 4th century BC – 3rd century AD.
Gold, L: 5 cm
Taurida Province, Kerch, Crimea; burial mound near the Bavrov farmstead [хутор Бавров], from a stone sarcophagus
ГИМ 54746/12662
The gold elements said to be from Bawa Gelde  Kurdistan, Iraq, dated 14th to 10th centuries BCE [read more]
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin

Roman Tombs in Shmuel ha-Navi Street, Jerusalem
L. Y. RAHMANI
Sarkamen

Read more >> https://colorsandstones.eu/2022/12/17/necklace-from-sarkamen-d-b/


The nicolo gemstones in jewelry and wall paintings from Trier

https://colorsandstones.eu/2021/11/05/the-nicolo-gemstones-in-jewelry-and-wall-paintings-from-trier/