Byzantine Necklace (1925.522)
Junyi Wu, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2026
The Byzantine Necklace (1925.522) is located in the Medieval Gallery (111).
The necklace could easily be cradled in one hand, but it suggests journeys across hundreds of miles of land and sea. It displays precious sapphires, emeralds, and gold which could have been mined in and extracted from places ranging from Egypt, to India, to Sri Lanka. Gems and unworked gold would have been carried to the Byzantine island of Cyprus located on the eastern side of Mediterranean Sea, where this necklace seems to have been made. These raw materials were then put into the hands of unknown Byzantine craftsmen, who created the necklace before us. We know neither the identity of the craftsman nor the identity of the woman who owned and wore this necklace, but the craftsman would have left traces of their techniques on the necklace, and the woman would have been wealthy and well-dressed. Indeed, Byzantine women, like the gems and gold they wore, sometimes traveled far from home. This necklace was found in Egypt, at Thebes, some six hundred miles from Cyprus. This lightweight but exquisite necklace would have made the perfect traveling companion, perhaps crossing again some of the lands and seas originally traversed by its raw materials. And the portable nature of this necklace hints at the mobility and further traveling of this necklace as it went from one owner to another.
