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• 1 media/1925.522-new.jpg 2024-02-15T11:53:18-08:00 Byzantine Necklace (1925.522) 42 plain 2024-03-13T13:02:19-07:00 35.126, 33.430

  Junyi Wu, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2026
  
  
  This 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, where this necklace seems to have been made. Cyprus is located on the eastern side of Mediterranean Sea, north of Egypt, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. 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 (or, likely, women) 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.  

  
  
   
• 1 2024-02-28T20:59:11-08:00 What does this Necklace tell us about the Medieval Globe? 20 plain 2024-03-13T07:05:00-07:00 Junyi Wu, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2026
  
  
  This necklace, as one small piece of jewelry from the long-ago Byzantine Empire, might be easy to miss in its display case. But the precious stones tell stories about the medieval globe, since the gold, emeralds, sapphire, pearls, and other stones were brought together from different regions. The materials and style of the necklace testify to the global travel and communication of the period. The materials and color connect this piece to the Floor Mosaic Border with Peacocks, which is also constructed from beautiful small colored stones. But most importantly, crafted in the time and place of a wide variety of conflicts, the necklace tells a story of the resilience of people in search of beauty.