Banded Agate Earrings

Description

The extraordinary variety of beads in these earrings illustrates the taste for polychromy so typical of oriental jewelry, which reached its peak during the Persian period. Craftsmen combined dozens of different stones with masterful artistry, producing contrasts in colors, materials, transparency and opacity to create a polychromatic symphony, punctuated by gold beads formed of rows of fine granules, a characteristic of the Achaemenid period. This was discovered in Susa, one of the capitals of the Empire, in the tomb of a high ranking person who was laid to rest in his sarcophagus wearing all his jewelry, with a silver cup, two alabaster vases and two coins at his side, that made it possible to date the sarcophagus to the end of the Persian Empire. Materials: agate, gold finish granulation beads Paris, Louvre Museum, Department of Oriental Antiquities Developed for the Réunion des Musées Nationaux