Chain

Necklace

31-50-212

Location: On Display in the Eastern Mediterranean Gallery

From: Israel | Beth Shean

Curatorial Section: Near Eastern

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Object Number 31-50-212
Current Location Eastern Mediterranean Gallery - On Display
Provenience Israel | Beth Shean
Archaeology Area CN 270, monastery, Room H
Locus C.N. 270, monastery, Room H
Period Byzantine
Date Made 550-599 CE
Section Near Eastern
Materials Gold
Description

Medallion, 32 flat links and a fragment of another link, and a small chain.

Fitzgerald: "The finest single object found in the whole course of our excavations is undoubtedly the gold chain which lay at the floor level of room H.... It consists of a central medallion 2 cm in diameter with a filigree pattern and links of thin gold, 2.3 cm in length, in the form of conventionalized flowers ornamented with small perforations and finely incised lines. A thin tongue projecting from the crescent-shaped end of each link passes through a hole near the rounded end of the next and is bent back to form a loop/. A very fine chain of doubled gold wire is attached to one of the ends, which has broken off; the other end is lost but we may assume that there were originally seventeen links on each side of the medallion and that the complete chain fell little, if at all, short of a meter in length.”

Height 2 cm
Length 88 cm
Credit Line Expedition to Beth Shean (Beisan); Clarence Fisher, 1931
Other Number 30-10-366 - Field No SF

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