Silver bracelets
Each bracelet is made of a rod with overlapping terminals that has been shaped into an oval. The terminals are decorated with shallow incised lines that are set back slightly from the end of the rod and contained by a circumferential line at either end. The surface of both bracelets is covered with silver bromide corrosion.
When the bracelets were acquired by Leonard Stern they were identified as electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. However, XRF analysis in the Met’s laboratory makes clear that the bracelets are made of unalloyed silver. It would have been exceptional to find such a significant amount of electrum used for an Early Cycladic bracelet but silver is much more common and could be locally sourced on the island of Siphnos or at Lauvrion in Attica. Good parallels for these bracelets have been excavated at the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Petras in eastern Crete, which is near to the Early Cycladic site of Agia Photia, one of the few places on Crete where Cycladic people are known to have settled. The bracelets from Petras also have overlapping terminals although without further decoration and they exhibit a similar distinctive silver bromide corrosion.(1)
Seán Hemingway, Dorothy Abramitis, Federico Carò
(1) See A. Giumlia-Maier, P.P. Betancourt, Susan C. Ferrence and J.D. Muhly, "Special Silver Alloys from the Pre- and Proto-palatial Cemetery of Petras, Crete," in M. Tsipopoulou, ed., Petras, Siteia. The Pre- and Proto-palatial cemetery in context (Monograph of the Danish Institute in Athens, Volume 21 (Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2017), pp. 203-213, esp. fig. 1. There are four silver bracelets, probably all dated to the Early Cycladic II period, in the Ashmolean Museum that are said to be from Amorgos, some of which include similar incised decoration near the terminals. See S. Sherratt, Catalogue of Cycladic Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum. The Captive Spirit. I-II. Illustrations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.96-99, pls. 64-67.
Artwork Details
- Title: Silver bracelets
- Period: Early Cycladic II
- Date: ca. 2700–2400/2300 BCE
- Culture: Cycladic
- Medium: Silver
- Dimensions: a:
Length: 2 5/8 in. (6.6 cm)
Width: 2 1/8 in. (5.4 cm)
Depth: 3/16 in. (.5 cm)
Weight: .012 oz. (.35 g)
b:
Length: 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm)
Width: 2 1/8 in. (5.4 cm)
Depth: 3/16 in. (.5 cm)
Weight: .012 oz. (.35 g) - Classification: Gold and Silver
- Credit Line: Leonard N. Stern Collection, Loan from the Hellenic Republic, Ministry of Culture
- Object Number: L.2022.38.31a, b
- Curatorial Department: Greek and Roman Art
Audio
1339. Silver Bracelets & Copper alloy chisel (ca. 2700–2400/2300 BCE)
Narrator: When I look around the gallery, I see a lot of marble and terracotta objects, but fewer in metal. I asked the Archaeologist Sandy MacGillivray, to tell me more about these two particular pieces and the materials that they’re made of.
MacGillivray: This chisel is a very, very unusual and really well-preserved example of the sort of tool that was made from one of the local mineral resources.
Narrator: He explained that the Cycladic islands were rich in copper and the islanders were skilled in how to mine and “smelt” it. On the other hand, other materials, like tin, had to have been imported via trade. What about the silver in the bracelets?
MacGillivray: There are silver mines that were then exploited in the later Greek period and made the Western Cycladic Islands very, very wealthy. But already back in the early Bronze Age, they were extracting the silver. The silver bracelet’s an extremely rare preservation of something that we suspect would have been fairly common. And that is: jewelry crafted from native local silver.
Narrator: And how would the chisel have been used?
MacGillivray: This is the sort of tool that would have been essential for daily life. Tink of boat building, think of building houses, think of building furniture, but also think of roughing out the shapes in marble for the Cycladic figures that we see in these cases.
Narrator: So, the Cycladic islands were incredibly rich in materials that were being traded not just amongst the islanders, but also internationally. Why was there such abundance for them?
MacGillivray: Cycladic Islands are a volcanic ring,it’s called the Hellenic Volcanic Arc. And so it means that there's a lot of activity in the earth. That's why there are so many earthquakes in this region, but that's why it's so rich in mineral resources.