Moulded glass on a rod
4th-3rd c. BC
Empúries (L’Escala – Alt Empordà)
The necklace we present today comes from the purchases made by the Girona Monuments Commission of objects that had been systematically looted from the Empúries necropolises until well into the 20th century, even after official excavations had been taking place there for years.
It consists of more than a hundred glass beads moulded on a rod so that they came out with the hole for threading them already made. There are also some made of stone and some of faience, a glazed silica paste of Egyptian origin or influence, which was usually bright turquoise or green in colour. It is about 66 cm long, with the beads threaded together forming a double arch. It is thought to have come from the eastern Mediterranean and, lacking context, it can be dated to between the 4th and 1st centuries BC.
Bead necklaces are usually found during excavations with the beads loose. Depending on the state of preservation of the tomb, it is possible to collect all or at least a good part of them. Only on very few occasions have archaeologists been able to perceive their original arrangement. Ancient iconography helps us see what they were like and the different ways men and women wore them. We can see them, for example, on the Punic terracotta vessels from Ibiza or the well-known Ladies of Elche and Baza.
This necklace, like most others of the same type and period, has been reconstructed in modern times. We cannot be certain that what we see today was its original arrangement. But that does not detract from its validity. It projects them into a future that the people who wore them in life and preserved them in death would surely not have even imagined. It is ancient jewellery with a modern vision. It has become jewellery for eternity.
