BM 136816
By kind permission of British Museum
- By kind permission of British Museum
- By kind permission of British Museum
DEPOSIT INFORMATION
| Deposit | London, The British Museum, BM 136816=1977,0226.18 |
| Notes | Purchased from Nicholas Wright. |
SUPPORT INFORMATION
| Support type | Artefact » Personal adornment » Bracelet | ||||
| Material | Gold | ||||
| Measures | Each bead: h. 0.5, l. 1, w. 0.5, wt. 2.7 g | ||||
| Decoration |
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| Notes on support and decorations | Bracelet made from eight hollow sheet beads in the form of recumbent lions: each is perforated lengthways to enable them to be strung on a necklace. Each was made from two pieces of gold sheet one punched to form the body and the second added to form the flat underside. |
ORIGIN AND PROVENANCE
| Modern site | Unknown |
| Ancient site | Unknown |
| Geographical area | Unknown |
| Country | Unknown |
| Notes | Two conjectural proveniences are linked with this item: Marib or Wādī Bayḥān. |
| Link to site record |
CULTURAL NOTES
These very distinctive beads probably belong to a wider tradition of making beads of the same shape out of stone as comparable examples made of amethyst, carnelian and lapis were found as part of a 5th-4th centuries BC
Achaemenid hoard of jewellery and precious metal at Pasargadae in Iran (Stronach 1978: 169-70, fig. 88: 14, pl. 52.c-d), and a locally carved soft-stone piece was excavated at Shabwa (Morrison 1991: 3889, fig. 2.58).
Granulated gold lion pendant beads were also reportedly part of the Muncherjee collection in Aden (Harding 1964: 11). The Asiatic lion was smaller than its African cousin but was the largest indigenous predator within the Near East until it was hunted to extinction the early part of the 20th century.
Achaemenid hoard of jewellery and precious metal at Pasargadae in Iran (Stronach 1978: 169-70, fig. 88: 14, pl. 52.c-d), and a locally carved soft-stone piece was excavated at Shabwa (Morrison 1991: 3889, fig. 2.58).
Granulated gold lion pendant beads were also reportedly part of the Muncherjee collection in Aden (Harding 1964: 11). The Asiatic lion was smaller than its African cousin but was the largest indigenous predator within the Near East until it was hunted to extinction the early part of the 20th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
| Simpson 2002: 121, cat. 132 | Simpson, St John (ed.) 2002. Queen of Sheba. Treasures from the ancient Yemen. London: British Museum Press. [Catalogue of an exhibition held at the British Museum, London] |
| Harding 1964 | Harding, G. Lankester 1964. Archaeology in the Aden Protectorates. London: H.M. Stationary Off. |
| Stronach 1978 | Stronach, David 1978. Pasargadae. A Report on the excavations conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Clarendon Press. |
| Morrison 1991 | Morrison, Helen M. 1991. The beads and seals of Shabwa. Syria, 68: 379-392. |