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When you think about the fact that for centuries chains were painstakingly handcrafted, link by link, it's all the more amazing to see a gold Minoan earring, dated to the 17th century B.C. in which delicate charms, shaped like owls and disks, are connected to an elaborate central disk by fine gold chains.
Gold chains with pendants were found at Dashur in the tomb of Princess Khnumet, who lived during Egypt's 12th Dynasty (c. 1991-1786 B.C.) Khnumet's taste in jewelry seems surprisingly contemporary. One delicate gold rope has a butterfly made of gold wire hanging from it. Two granulated gold star-shaped pendants hang from another, and the pendants on a third gold chain are described as "formalized flies," which actually look like upside-down gold hearts.
Although the earliest chains were made of simple links, woven chains have been found that date back to pre-Roman times. According to Tait, during the Hellenistic Age (325 B.C.-27 B.C.), gold became more available in Greece, "because of the intensive mining operations in Thrace, initiated by Phillip II, but mostly from the dissemination of the captured Persian treasures. The jewelry in Greece began to take on new forms, incorporating Asian and Egyptian motifs. Among the pieces that have survived from this age is a 2nd-century B.C. necklace from Taormina, Sicily. Its pendant, an inverted gold crescent decorated with filigree and granulation and set with lustrous red garnets, is suspended from a graceful woven gold chain.
The Romans also used woven gold chain in their jewelry. A treasure from the 1st century A.D. is an exquisite necklace, its delicate woven gold chain linked to cabochon garnets, also set in gold.
Chains continued to be meticulously made by hand throughout the Middle Ages. The Metropolitan Museum of New York has a pair of Frankish fibulae (brooches) dating to the 7th century A.D. in the form of gold-plated birds (possibly worn for luck), that are connected by a gold chain.
Much of what we know about jewelry and how it was worn in earlier times comes from paintings. Portraits of the once rich and famous give us a good idea of the jewelry of the times, or least what was worn by the upper classes. A fascinating Flemish painting by Petrus Christus, dated 1544) shows a goldsmith in his shop, with a wealthy young couple behind him.
 But this isn't just any goldsmith, the clue being the delicate halo around his cap. He is Saint Eligius, the patron saint of goldsmiths and jewelers, and he's shown holding a pair of scales, preparing to weigh a gold ring, which some scholars say will be used in the wedding. What's interesting, for purposes of this article, is the heavy and obviously expensive gold chain that the young man behind him wears so casually around his neck. |
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