A PAIR OF BYZANTINE GOLD HOOP EARRINGS, CIRCA 6TH-7TH CENTURY A.D.

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A PAIR OF BYZANTINE GOLD AND CARNELIAN FLORAL EARRINGS, CIRCA 6TH-7TH CENTURY A.D. Each earring formed as a six-petalled rosette worked in sheet gold, the petals densely covered in fine granulation and radiating from a central collet set with a cabochon carnelian. The rosette is framed by an openwork ring of thin gold wire, from which spring four small granulated florets set at the cardinal points, each composed of a cluster of minute gold spherules gathered around a central grain. The reverse of one example preserves the hooked wire fitting drawn from the body of the piece, curving down and back to pass through the ear, terminating in a tapered point. Both earrings retain their bright gold surface, with the carnelian cabochons intact in their plain bezel settings. The floral scheme belongs to the wider Late Antique and Early Byzantine vocabulary of paradisial imagery, in which the blossom, the vine, and the fruit stand for abundance and eternal life. Rosettes of this six-petalled type appear across Byzantine gold work from Constantinople through the eastern provinces, on rings, pendants, marriage belts, and dress ornaments, always carrying the same associations of fertility and celestial garden. The carnelian at the centre of each earring functions as the pistil of the flower, its warm colour set against the yellow gold in the characteristic Byzantine pairing of hardstone and precious metal. The technique is the granulation tradition inherited from Hellenistic and Roman goldsmithing and refined under the Byzantine workshops, in which minute spheres of gold are fused to a sheet-gold ground by colloidal soldering, producing a matte, textured field that catches the light differently from the burnished bezel and wire. The survival of granulation at this scale, in this period, reflects the continued mastery of eastern Mediterranean goldsmiths working for a court and civic clientele that expected the technical repertoire of earlier centuries to be maintained. Carnelian, worked as a cabochon, was among the most widely used hardstones in Byzantine jewellery, valued both for its colour and for its protective and amuletic associations carried forward from Roman practice. This pair exemplifies the Early Byzantine goldsmith's ability to compress the paradisial garden into an ornament of scarcely more than an inch across, combining granulation, wirework, and cabochon setting into a single legible flower. They stand within the mainstream of sixth- and seventh-century personal adornment, where floral form and hardstone colour together carried both fashion and belief. Dimensions: Length of face 1.7 cm; total weight 6 g.

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