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Golden craftsmanship: granulation

Related Images

  • Fig 32: Achaemenid Persion gold ornament in the shape of a ram’s head with a granulated neck – Metropolitan Museum of Art – [1977.211](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/326229)
  • Fig 33: Achaemenid Persion gold crescent-shaped earrings with granulation on the inner and outer edges – Metropolitan Museum of Art – [1995.180a, b](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/327506)
  • Fig 34: Egyptian gold box decorated with granulation – Metropolitan Museum of Art – [23.2.41](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551317)

After diving into all these different symbols and tiny parts of this necklace, you might have already guessed that this necklace is made of gold. Gold was mainly used in ornaments in order to show off wealth. The choice of the metal in this necklace thus reflects its symbolic and economic value.See: Ogden, Jack. ‘Gold in Antiquity’. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 17, no. 3 (1 September 1992): 261–70. Of all the troops the Persians were adorned with the greatest magnificence…they glittered all over with gold, vast quantities of which they wore about their person.See: Harper, Prudence O. et al. ‘Ancient Near Eastern Art’. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 41, no. 4 (1984), p. 49 .

The fact that Persians wore such prestigious objects is told by the Greek historian Herodotus (VII, 83). Although Herodotus’ view is biased and largely a figment because of his Greek background, wearing gold was no exception for the Persians. Gold was regarded as a precious material in the entire Ancient World. The metal could be taken from alluvial deposits or found deep in the rocks. Gold mines were widely spread across the Ancient Near East and beyond, but by no means uniformlySee: Ogden, Jack. ‘Gold in Antiquity’. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 17, no. 3 (1 September 1992): 261–70..

After gold was mined and prepared, goldsmiths were able to process the material into the desired form using certain techniques. One of these is the technique of granulation, which can be seen on the outline of the upper pendants hanging under the horse compartments. It is a decoration technique: the goldsmith joins small grains of metal, called granules, on the surface of an object of the same material (Fig. 32 & Fig. 33). This technique was already known centuries before the Achaemenid Persian period. It is not exactly clear how the smiths produced such evenly spherical grains in such large numbers (Fig. 34). A granulated object might be composed of hundreds or thousands of granules, which were probably fastened to the object by some kind of adhesive glue or by means of soldering. Soldering is a method to join together two or more objects by melting a metal and using it as a filler to attach the objects to each other. With the use of granulation, a rather detailed way of decoration could be achieved.See: Wolters, Jochem. ‘The Ancient Craft of Granulation’. Gold Bulletin 14, no. 3 (1 September 1981): 119–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03216741.