The Greek Jewellery in the Historic Period
Geometric and Orientalizing periods
| In the so-called dark ages (1100-800 BC) that followed the collapse of the Mycenaean world, gold and silversmithing displayed neither the wealth nor the imagination of the preceding centuries. Nevertheless, the tradition created lived on, mingled with more recent influences from the North, primarilly in the bronze and iron jewellery - the noble metals are very rare - of the early centuries (1100-900 BC), (Eig.1). Rings, hair spirals, bracelets and arched fibulae recovered from Geometric graves in Attica were made in the simplest possible form from wire or very thin sheet metal devoid of decoration. |
| Fig 1 Gold bead from Anavyssos. (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, XP 1520, 6435). 8th century BC. |
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Jewellery-making flowered anew shortly after 800 BC, as a result of contacts with the more advanced civilizations of the East and Egypt. This period, which is distinguished by oriental influences, spans the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Funerary diadems with repousse decoration of geometric motifs, animals or even humans, from the tombs in the Kerameikos (fig. 2); the necklace (fig. 3), the earrings (fig.4) and the plaques decorated with filigree and granulation, and inlaid with glass paste or amber, from the cemeteries at Spata and Eleusis (fig. 5); the "earring" from the Idaian Cave, all indicate that during the eighth century BC thriving goldsmithing workshops, particularly in Attica and Crete, were producing works of exceptional artistry. |
| Fig. 2 Gold band from the Kerameikos. (Athens, National Archaeological Museum, XP 1). 8th century BC. |