Necklace with vase-shaped pendant
Χ-Α1090
Metal (Gold), Bone, Rock Crystal, Stone
Excellent
Stone bead: Diameter: 1.7 cm. Gold vase-shaped pendant: Height: 1.25cm. Width: 1.2cm. Gold cylindrical beads: Length: 0.25-0.3 cm.
Phourni
Tholos Tomb Gamma
Early-Middle Bronze Age. Prepalatial period. Early Minoan ΙΙΙ-Middle Minoan ΙΑ period:
2100-1800 BC:
Gallery:
IICase:
17Exhibition thematic unit:
Middle Bronze Age - Late Prepalatial-Protopalatial period (2200-1700 BC). From small communities to townsThe Archanes Cemetery
Description
The beads of necklace Χ-Α1090 were found in Tholos Tomb Gamma of the rich necropolis excavated on the hill of Phourni in Archanes. They display a variety of shapes and materials: tubular, amygdaloid, biconical and ring-shaped, made of gold, bone, rock crystal and greenish veined stone. In the centre of the necklace is one of the few gold pendants from Prepalatial Crete, made of solid cast gold. It was produced using a large amount of gold and technical expertise. The shape, representing a vessel with horizontal handles, is similar to that of silver pin heads found on Naxos. It may symbolise the vases used to transport goods of high social and economic value, such as wine and perfumed oils. The necklace beads were found in the lowest burial fill of the tomb, near the entrance. Their location may be associated with the clearing and moving of the older graves and the preparation of the floor to receive clay larnakes, which followed towards the end of the Prepalatial period. Due to the burial customs of 3rd-millennium Crete, the beads cannot be associated with a specific individual; however, they reflect the outward-looking attitude and social status of the group of people buried in this tomb.Bibliography:
Sakellarakis J. and E. Sapouna-Sakellaraki, 1997. Αρχάνες: Μία Νέα Ματιά Στη Μινωική Κρήτη, Ammos, vol.2, p. 619, fig. 656. Papadatos, Y. 2005. Tholos Tomb Gamma: A Prepalatial Tholos Tomb at Phourni, Archanes. INSTAP Academic Press (Institute for Aegean Prehistory), p. 36, 41, 53. Papadatos, Y. 2018. Mortuary variability, social differentiation and ranking in Prepalatial Crete: The evidence from the cemetery of Phourni, Archanes, in M. Relaki & Y. Papadatos (eds), From the Foundations to the Legacy of Minoan Archaeology: Studies in honour of Professor Keith Branigan, (Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 12), Oxford & Philadelphia (2018), 96-114. Hickman, J. 2008, Gold Before the Palaces: Crafting jewelry and social identity in Minoan Crete, Pennsylvania, p. 331.Author:
I. G.Photographs' metadata