A PAIR OF EASTERN ROMAN GOLD AND GARNET EARRINGS CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

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A PAIR OF EASTERN ROMAN GOLD AND GARNET EARRINGS, CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D. Each earring composed of three elements suspended from a shepherd's-hook wire: a lozenge-shaped bezel set with a flat garnet plaque, a short length of loop-in-loop chain, and a pendant in the form of a miniature amphora. The bezels are constructed from sheet gold with raised collets, the garnets retained within plain rectangular settings and oriented on the diagonal to present as lozenges. From the lower point of each bezel descends a fine chain of doubled links, terminating in a suspension loop from which hangs the amphora pendant. The vessels are hollow-formed, each with a short cylindrical neck flanked by a pair of scrolled handles rendered in drawn wire, an ovoid body tapering to a small button foot. The bodies are decorated across their upper and middle registers with applied granulation arranged as rosettes, each rosette formed of a central grain encircled by six smaller grains, interspersed with single beaded studs. The amphora is one of the most persistent pendant forms in the Graeco-Roman jewellery repertoire, drawn directly from the ceramic and metalwork vessel shapes of daily and ritual use. In earring form the miniature amphora carried associations of the vessels used in wedding and funerary rites, and by the Roman Imperial period had become a widespread type across the eastern provinces, from Syria and the Levant through Asia Minor to the northern Black Sea. The combination of granulated pendant with a chain-suspended stone-set bezel is characteristic of the second-century workshops of the Roman East, where Hellenistic goldsmithing traditions were maintained and adapted under Imperial patronage. Garnet held particular value in Roman jewellery of this period, its deep red translucence prized for its resemblance to wine and blood and its association, through the ancient lapidary literature, with vitality and protection. The stone was imported in quantity from India and Sri Lanka along the trade routes that connected the eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and its use in flat-cut plaques set within gold collets became a defining feature of Roman and later Late Antique jewellery. The pairing of garnet with granulated goldwork, as here, sets the cool geometry of the stone against the tactile richness of the applied ornament, a contrast the eastern Roman goldsmiths exploited across pendants, fibulae, and earrings alike. The granulation itself is executed in the older Hellenistic manner, with rosettes composed of clustered grains rather than the freely scattered dust granulation of earlier Etruscan work. This technique, requiring the fusion of minute gold spheres to a sheet substrate without visible solder, was carried into the Roman period by workshops in Alexandria, Antioch, and the cities of the Syrian and Anatolian coast, and it is to this broad milieu that the present pair belongs. This pair exemplifies the eastern Roman goldsmith's synthesis of Hellenistic technique and Imperial taste, where the miniature amphora, the loop-in-loop chain, and the collet-set garnet are brought together as a coherent type. Surviving pairs, still articulating and complete with both stone and pendant, are less commonly encountered than single examples, and the preservation here of both earrings with matching granulated bodies is notable within the category. Dimensions: Height: 7cm; Total Weight: 9g

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