Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine

Art
Aimilia Yeroulanou

With the transfer of the imperial capital to Constantinople, the

centre of gravity of not only the administration but also of
artistic development moved to the East. Specific changes took
place and, in art in particular, these led to an aesthetic
displaying obvious Hellenistic influences and with ancient
roots in the eastern Mediterranean. Art, primarily sculpture
made during the preceding period of the military emperors
and the tetrarchs, witnessed an upsurge of heavy figures in
frontal poses, characterised by harsh features and geometric
treatment of garments. These traits cannot be attributed to
technical ineptitude or an inability to imitate Classical models.
On the contrary, they were the result of a conscious choice of
styles designed specifically to serve the needs of propaganda,
to transmit from above messages of political power and
totalitarianism.
Beginning in the reign of Constantine the Great, however,
we can detect a merging of these traits with other, lighter,
classicising models, characteristic of the eastern
Mediterranean; these were destined ultimately to prevail in the
formation of the art of Constantinople. This phenomenon can
be seen, for example, in large scale sculpture such as the
sarcophagus of Junius Bassus,1 on which an Early Christian
thematic repertoire also appears. Such works of Hellenistic
character reveal the technical ability of their creators as well as
the orientation of the sophisticated and educated strata of
society, who endeavoured to keep this tradition alive. It is no
accident that this tendency is particularly evident on luxury
objects such as the ivory diptych of Symmachon and
Nikomachon2 executed with a purely classical rendering of the
figures and Greek iconography.
Similarly, a large number of silver vessels dating from the
2nd to the 5th century are decorated with classicising figures in
mythological scenes.3 This trend was prevalent even in the
western provinces of the Empire, as evidenced by major
treasures or hoards such as those found at Mildenhall4 and
Kaiseraugst,5 despite many questions concerning the origin of
these objects and their absolute dating. Classical remnants
including gods and heroes, symbols, vegetal motifs and
geometric patterns survived and were repeated conscientiously
on silver vessels made as late as the 7th century, appearing
alongside Christian subjects, as for example on the David plates
from the second Cyprus treasure.6
In jewellery this classicising trend is especially apparent in
the decoration, which had already excluded the human figure
from its thematic repertoire, but retained floral and geometric
motifs which emanate a delicacy and grace which recall
Hellenistic creations.7 The shape and decoration of some
bracelets which survived essentially throughout the duration
of Byzantine goldwork serve as examples of this tendency.
With few exceptions, characteristic elements of Hellenistic
jewellery such as the Herakles knot, coiled snaked bracelets
Plate 1 Bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc. no. 3866)
and bracelets with animal-headed terminals steadily
diminished in popularity throughout the Roman period up to
the 3rd century.8 One survival of the latter type (Pl. 1) is a
bracelet with confronted panthers in the Dumbarton Oaks
Collection.9 The felines’ bodies are rendered with particular
care, while their forelegs hold a mount for a precious stone. The
combination with the pierced-work technique on the back of
the mount suggests the bracelet should be dated to the 7th
century. Even if the earlier dating proposed by Zwirn10 proves
not to be valid, nonetheless the craftsman was surely familiar
with bracelets with animal-head terminals and the manner of
rendering them.
Another category is that of bracelets composed of
interlocking elements; these, too, are of Hellenistic origin. An
interesting example is the bracelet in the Zintilis Collection,11
now in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens (Pl. 2). It
comprises a row of interlinked plaques with inlaid stones, now
lost, and light pierced-work filling decoration; the central
plaque was set with a larger stone. It can be related to a
corresponding necklace in the same collection and is dated to
the late 4th century. Much later is a bracelet in the Pantalica
Treasure,12 with rows of interlocking heart-shaped elements,
each one enclosing an arrowhead motif. This bracelet is dated
to the 7th century. It is puzzling, given how common this
technique is on necklaces, that bracelets with interlocking
elements have not survived in greater numbers.
The bracelet type of greatest longevity was that with a hoop
formed from two moveable parts fashioned of thick wire or of
thin cylinders intertwined, secured by a plain or more

40 | ‘Intelligible Beauty’
 Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art

Plate 2 Bracelet, Athens, Cycladic Museum (Thanos Zintilis Collection)

Plate 3 Bracelet with Athena, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift Plate 4 Bracelet with busts of Christ and the Virgin, Athens, National
of J. Pierpont Morgan (Inv.-no. 1917,17.190.2053) Archaeological Museum, Stathatos Collection

Plate 5 Pair of bracelets, Washington

DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection
(Acc. nos. 38. 64–65)

Plate 6 Pair of bracelets with agates,

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Purchase, The Adolph D. and
Wilkins C. Williams Fund
(67.52.32.1/2)

‘Intelligible Beauty’ | 41
Yeroulanou
a b
Plates 7a-7b Bracelets from the Mytilene Treasure, Athens, Byzantine Museum
elaborate clasp. In the 3rd century the clasp was formed by a
mounted precious stone.13 An interesting 5th-century example
of such a bracelet, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,14 has a
clasp with a medallion representing the head of Athena,
another example of the partiality for Greek subject matter (Pl.
3). The very wide diffusion of bracelets with twisted hoops is
illustrated by examples in the Thetford15 and the Ténès16
treasures, as well as those in copper-alloy from Thessalonica.17
Taken together, these testify to the international character of
Late Roman and Early Christian jewellery.
A further pair of bracelets from Thessalonica, in the
Stathatos Collection, with a hoop formed from twisted bars,
has terminals in the form of two facing heart-shaped plaques.
(See Bosselmann-Ruickbie this volume, Pls 1–2.) The
plaques feature a composition with two birds on either side of a
tree; a representation also known on earrings in the 7th
century. These bracelets have been dated to the 11th century.
Of the same period are the braided bracelets in the same
collection displaying busts of Christ and the Virgin (Pl. 4),
which by this time are purely amuletic in character.18
Closely related in form to the bracelets formed from twisted
bars are those with braided hoops. One pair, with a clasp with a
group of five coins up to the reign of Heraklios, is in the
Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Pl. 5).19 Another, with two copies
of coins in a corresponding arrangement, is in Berlin and
comes from Egypt, from the ensemble known as the Assiût
treasure.20 One further bracelet from the same treasure, again
with a braided hoop, has a cluster of 13 precious and semi-
precious stones on the clasp, in an arrangement corresponding
to that on a bracelet in the Louvre.21 This will be examined later
as its hoop is formed from a pierced-work band.
Composite bracelets, formed essentially from tubular hoops
of various shapes and with relief decoration, are encountered
from the 4th century onwards. One fine bracelet in the
collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and a
corresponding one in the de Clerq Collection,22 have hoops of
semi-circular cross-section, i.e. the inner side is flat. Two other
bracelets of irregular shape, again from Virginia (Pl. 6), 23 also
belong in this group. One has inlaid stones and they can be
dated to the late 3rd or the early 4th century.
The bracelets from the Mytilene treasure also have tubular
hoops (Pl. 7a), although much finer and with a characteristic
42 | ‘Intelligible Beauty’
thickening towards the centre.24 Among them is an important
example with cruciform monograms (Pl. 7b). Bracelets with
similar hoops are known also from Constantinople, the Mersin
treasure and from Cyprus. All are dated to around the 7th
century.
Returning again to the 4th and 5th centuries, to the basic
shapes of this period, that is of bracelets with hoops of semi-
circular cross-section and bracelets with moveable clasps, we
observe that the pierced-work technique prevails in the
rendering of the decoration, with a few cases in which relief is
used.
On perusing the groups of pierced-work bracelets, the
wealth of shapes, designs and decoration in this unique period
of jewellery production, becomes apparent. Initial stages of the
technique appear in similar bracelets composed of a pierced-
work band with intermediate circular discs without
decoration.25 It is possible that they were interposed to
consolidate the pierced-work surface, given that it is fine and
vulnerable to damage. On the pierced-work parts checkerboard
patterns alternate with a simplified rinceau with tiny ivy
leaves. The workmanship of the pierced-work surface could be
characterised as rough, in comparison with the finer
compositions of the next group of bracelets. It displays closer
affinity to the opus interrasile of coin mounts from the West,
such as some pieces from the Beaurains treasure, dated to the
late 3rd or the early 4th century.26
On almost all the bracelets, an attempt was made to insure
their durability against wear and tear by leaving areas of gold
between the pierced-work parts. A bracelet in the British
Museum (Pl. 8) has four blank elliptical discs, in combination
with scenes of the vintage and the chase.27 Here, the pierced-
work surface is limited and of a less formalised design. Scenes
of hunting or of harvesting grapes are particularly frequent on
bracelets of the period, such as the bracelet with putti engaged
in the vintage, from Desana.28
Such scenes also appear on three bracelets from the Hoxne
treasure (Pl. 9), of the late 4th or the early 5th century. One
bracelet has, in addition, cut-out surfaces engraved with a
youthful head. On all these examples, the pierced-work
surfaces are of limited extent and more random design. Two
other pairs, with rows of circles and lozenges, between which
are pierced-work scrolls, are unique examples, as is one other
 Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art

Plate 8 Bracelet, London, British

Museum (GR AF 2817)

Plate 9 The group of 19 bracelets from the Hoxne Treasure, London, British Museum (PE 1994,4-8,11-29)

Plate 10 Bracelet with inscription from the Hoxne Treasure, London, British Plate 11 Bracelet, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum (83.AM.227.3)
Museum (PE 1994,4-8,29)

Plate 12 Bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc no. 75.1) Plate 13 Bracelet from the Ténès Treasure, Algiers, Musée National des
Antiquités

‘Intelligible Beauty’ | 43
Yeroulanou
Plate 14 Bracelet, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung (30219, 509)
bracelet from the same hoard, with horizontal and vertical
bands creating panels of pierced-work scrolls of the same
simple workmanship as the previous bracelets. The bracelet
with the openwork inscription, vtere felix domina iuliane,
which serves the same function of consolidation of the
openwork surface, belongs to the class of jewellery with
inscriptions.29 This last bracelet, another with mainly blank
circular discs on the surface, is reminiscent of eastern
Mediterranean traits such as the pierced-work decoration that
forms around the discs, nested lozenges and a straight stem
with tiny ivy leaves placed symmetrically on either side (Pl.
8).30
Exceptionally fine and strictly disciplined workmanship
also appears on a bracelet in the Getty Museum, on which
concentric circles of very fine stems are formed around small
animals, birds, leaves and rosettes (Pl. 11).31 Exactly the same
arrangement is seen in the concentric circles and lozenges on a
bracelet in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Pl. 12), 32 despite
the fact that on the criterion of shape it belongs within the
category of bracelets with moveable geometric openings.
Nonetheless, the similarity in the rendering of the pierced-
work surface permits its almost certain attribution to the same
workshop.
In every attempt at classifying or dating pierced-work
jewellery it is important to focus on the motifs and themes of
the decorative programme of the pierced-work surface and
secondly on the shapes, the use of stones, and so on.
On the bracelet from the Ténès Treasure (Pl. 13), 33 a
geometric border encloses the vine leaves and the birds, with a
more lavish interposing of gold surfaces. The same principle is
applied on the large bracelet from the Hoxne Treasure, with
the cut-out leaves.34 Here, however, a lack of balance is
observable in the arrangement of the decorative motifs. More
accomplished is the composition on the Audemer bracelet,
where oak leaves are interposed between the wavy band, while
the pierced-work scroll is extremely fine and balanced.35
These large bracelets recall a pair from Syria, now shared
between Berlin (Pl. 14) and Saint Louis in the USA.36 The
bracelet hoop differs and is of hexagonal cross-section, has no
cut-out surfaces and is rendered completely in pierced work,
with concentric geometric shapes. The workmanship is
remarkably fine, so that the surface almost resembles filigree.
In the central zone of both bracelets is the Greek inscription
ΕΥΤΥΧΩΣ ΧΡΩ ΔΙΑ ΒΙΟΥ (‘use it for [your] luck throughout
life’) and ΨΥΧΗ ΚΑΛΗ ΥΓΙΑΙΝΟΥΣΑ ΦΟΡΙ (‘beautiful,
healthy soul, wear it’). These bracelets are among the most
44 | ‘Intelligible Beauty’
Plate 15 Bracelet, Cologne, Römisch-Germanisches Museum (1498)
important and typical examples of the pierced-work technique.
Some bracelets with hoops in the form of a pierced-work
band (Pl. 15) are enriched with precious stones. One pair from
the de Clerq Collection and one bracelet in the Cabinet des
Médailles, Paris, are of the same shape, with two zones of
pierced-work scrolls separated by tooled wire.37 The only
difference is that the single bracelet in the Cabinet des
Médailles has a moveable clasp. The pierced-work scroll is also
the same on the two bracelets, with a clear design rendered on
a rather thick surface, so that the scroll has substance and is
discernible on the reverse too. A bracelet from Cologne38 is also
in the form of a fine pierced band with precious stones (Pl. 15).
The scrolls in particular, which describe a large pelta, bring to
mind the corresponding design on the medallions of
Constantine the Great.39
To the group that combines pierced-work technique with
inlaid precious stones belong also some bracelets with hoops of
semi-circular cross-section but which are not closed at the
back, like the tubular bracelets. In this way they achieve the
desired transparency. On a pair of high quality bracelets in the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Pl. 16), the running scroll, above
and below the settings with sapphires and emeralds, forms
extremely fine concentric circles with details that are
encountered on other bracelets.40 The delicacy and the balance
of the accomplished workmanship are due to the manner in
which the pierced work is executed, by excising the gold
completely and neatly, leaving the design clearly visible on the
reverse as well. Very closely related are a bracelet from the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and one in the Römisch-
Plate 16 Pair of bracelets, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The
Adolph and Wilkins C. Williams Fund (67.52.31.1/2)

Plate 17 Bracelet, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum (83 AM 227.2)
Germanisches Museum in Mainz.41 The pierced-work
decoration on the Oxford bracelet is slightly denser, with
lozenges enclosing vine leaves, and shares elements in
common with the last examples. The design can be seen very
clearly on the back. The decoration on the Mainz bracelet is
different, because the interlace that is usually a filling motif
surrounding the shapes, is here the main subject and leaves
along the rim other motifs, which do not appear, however, to be
correctly distributed. On a pair of bracelets in the Cabinet des
Médailles with hoops of semi-hexagonal cross-section, the
decoration between the inlaid stones42 is simple and includes
Greek inscriptions. The latter, together with all the other
elements, argue for an eastern Mediterranean origin for these
pieces of jewellery.
The last example in this important category is the large
bracelet set with precious stones and of semi-hexagonal cross-
section, in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Pl. 17).43 The wide band is
filled with mounted stones and sockets in which pearls were
strung. The pierced-work decoration, somewhat restricted by
the stones, has been worked from the front, leaving just holes
on the back. Even so, the type of scroll and the details are
sufficiently akin to the previous examples and certainly
constitute an outstanding example of the goldsmith’s art, with
many similar elements that undoubtedly point to a common
origin.
Whereas the entire preceding category is distributed
between the 4th and the 5th century, the next category,
composed of bracelets that have a clasp of geometric shape,
begins in the 3rd century with a bracelet in the de Clerq
Collection, and continues until the 7th century.44 Like the
Dumbarton Oaks bracelet (Pl. 12), the one in the Louvre45 has a
Plate 18 Pair of bracelets, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan (Inv.-no. 7.190.1668–1669)
Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art
Plate 19 Bracelet, London, British Museum (PE AF 351)
square clasp with nine inlaid stones and its hoop is very closely
worked with tiny squares each enclosing a cross. The
hypothesis that the subject has Christian connotations cannot
be ruled out, as this bracelet, like the next pair, has been dated
to the 5th century. A pair from Egypt has pierced-work
decoration on both the hoop and the circular clasp (Pl. 18).
They, too, are very compactly worked with geometric patterns,
between which are small birds.46 It is not without significance
that small crosses are represented at the centre of the hoops.
The absence of engraving on the surfaces of the birds is
reminiscent of the rendering of the birds and the leaves on the
bracelet from the Ténès treasure (Pl. 13).
A high point among the pierced-work bracelets is an
example in the British Museum, with a bust of the Virgin on the
disc of the clasp (Pl. 19).47 By the 6th century, jewellery often
had an overtly religious content. On the hoop is a rinceau that
emerges from a vase and encloses a bird in each scroll. The
decoration here is free, with larger interstices so that the
design is absolutely clear on both the front and back. Also
dated to the 6th century are two bracelets in the Benaki
Museum (Pl. 20), on which the pierced-work discs of the clasps
are decorated with a scroll emerging from a cornucopia, a
design which is replicated in repoussé on the hoops.48 The
correspondence between this specific subject and the manner
of its execution with the decoration on the cross of Justin II,
allows us to date them to the second half of the 6th century. We
have clearly moved on to a new phase in pierced work, with
large cut-out designs; this too encompasses many important
pieces of jewellery.
Also belonging to this period is a repoussé bracelet (Pl. 21a),
as well as a fragment of its pair (Pl. 21b) in the Dumbarton
‘Intelligible Beauty’ | 45
Yeroulanou

Oaks Collection: this has a scene on its circular clasp of an
emperor in a chariot accompanied by Victories.49 Depicted on
the hoop is a vine branch enclosing animals and birds. Two
bracelets of the same type were found at Hebron in Palestine.
On another group of bracelets, vine stems enriched with leaves
and bunches of grapes are worked on the hoop (Pl. 22). The
bracelets in the second Lambousa treasure, on which the same
symmetrical vine stem also fills the disc of the clasp,50 are
characteristic of this type. The Lambousa treasure includes
some of the most important pieces of jewellery known from the
6th to 7th century.
Two more pairs of bracelets, also with vine stems, but
varied by the addition of precious stones, are known: one is
from the Assiût treasure, 51 now in Berlin, the other from Varna
in Bulgaria (Pl. 23).52 The first have openwork vine scrolls as
part of the hoop and a clasp, which are slightly wider than the
height of the hoops, in the shape of multi-petalled rosettes. On
the second pair, the vine scrolls are contained between two
fixed tooled wires that form the hoops, laden with bunches of
grapes formed by pearls and leaves of pale green stone. Finally,
one more important bracelet with a hoop and circular clasp
from the Assiût treasure, now in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, is encrusted with splendid precious stones and only the
reverse of the disc has a design of pierced-work interlace (Pl.
24).53
Bypassing the dark age of the 8th century, we come to the
period when the use of enamel prevails in the goldsmith’s art. It
features mainly on ecclesiastical objects, icons, book covers,
and so on, preserved in church sacristies, while items of
jewellery are few and these predominantly religious amulets.
One exception is the pair of armbands from Thessalonica (Pl.
25), a unique example of enamelling, which continues the
tradition of depicting birds and plant motifs with particularly
harmonious colours.54
There is a notable decline in both the production and the
quality of bracelets surviving from the subsequent periods of
Byzantine art. Wars, looting, and economic difficulties were all
factors that contributed to this apparent decline in jewellery.
Even so, representations of emperors bedecked in magnificent
jewellery, and of ordinary persons too, as attested by the wall-
paintings in the early 14th-century church of St Nicholas the
Orphan in Thessalonica, as well as other representations,

Plate 20 Pair of bracelets, Athens,

Benaki Museum (1835–1836)

a b

Plates 21a and b Repoussé medallions of a bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Acc. no. 50.37)

a b

Plate 22 Pair of bracelets, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan (Inv. no. 17.190.148–149)

46 | ‘Intelligible Beauty’
 Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art

Plate 23 Pair of bracelets, Varna,

Narodni Museum

Plate 24 Bracelet, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont

Morgan (Inv.-no. 17.190.1670–1671)

Plate 25 Pair of bracelets, Thessalonika, Museum of Byzantine Culture (BKU 262/6)

‘Intelligible Beauty’ | 47
Yeroulanou
Plate 26 Bracelet, Athens, P. and A. Kanellopoulos Museum (no. 14)
indicate that a love of luxury continued to exist. Bracelets
continued to be produced with a band hoop. The most
important example of this group which dates to the 11th–12th
century is the bracelet in the Kanellopoulos Collection, on
which lions, griffins and birds are represented on either side of
a braided repoussé stem (Pl. 26). 55 This piece is made of gold
and along the edges is a palmette volute picked out in niello.
There is a corresponding silver bracelet with the same
representations of animals and the niello scroll on the edge, in
the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (Pl. 27),56 and a similar but
wider bracelet in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
One bracelet in the Benaki Museum has griffins inscribed
in squares all around the hoop (Pl. 28).57 Even though the
griffin was a common subject in ancient Greek art, here it may
bear witness to Islamic influence in this period, because
fantastic creatures of this kind were much in vogue in
Constantinople, both in ceramics and textiles. Griffins in the
same arrangement are encountered also on a silver bracelet in
the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, although on this example
the borders enclosing the design are more pronounced and the
hoop is much narrower.58 On one other bracelet in the Benaki
Museum, square panels enclose pseudo-Kufic letters inlaid in
niello, while the whole is surrounded by a band of scrolls.59
The last two bracelets in this survey, again from the Benaki
Museum, appear to be related to the previous ones in their
material, their nielloed decoration and their shape (Pl. 29).60
Plate 28 Silver bracelet, Athens, Benaki Museum (11454, 11455)
48 | ‘Intelligible Beauty’
Plate 27 Silver bracelet, Washington DC, Dumbarton Oaks Collection, (Acc.
no. 59.53)
Here the hoop is decorated with three relief medallions, each
decorated with a banded cross with four volute palmettes. The
presence of the cross places it in the sphere of purely amuletic
jewellery. The other bracelet has bosses decorated with
palmette interlaces and arabesques in niello on a silver
ground.61
Although these bracelets of the 11th to 12th century are
devoid of opulence and offer little information regarding the
diversity of decoration, we should note that bracelets overall,
and those included in this short article, constitute a
particularly interesting corpus of jewellery, which has given us
exquisite examples of superb art, as well as ample ground for
deliberation on problems.
Notes
1 W.F. Volbach, Early Christian Art, London, 1961, pls 41–3.
2 K. Weitzmann (ed.), Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early
Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, New York, 1979, nos 165–6.
3 See for example the situla with six deities, ibid., no. 118.
4 Ibid., no. 130.
5 Trésors d’ orfèvrerie gallo-romains (Exh. cat.), Paris, 1989, no. 224.
6 Weitzmann (n. 2), 475–83, nos 425–33.
7 Cf. a necklace with coin pendants: T. Hackens and R. Winkes (eds),
Gold Jewelry: Craft, Style and Meaning from Mycenae to
Constantinopolis, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1983, no. 36.
8 Cf. the central piece of a diadem in the Benaki Museum: Ελληνικά
Κοσμήματα, Μουσείο Μπενάκη, Athens, 1999, no. 68 as well as the
snake bracelets nos 88, 89, 90 and the bracelets nos 56 and 57.
9 M.C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval
Plate 29 Silver bracelet, Athens, Benaki Museum (11457)
 Important Bracelets in Early Christian and Byzantine Art

Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Vol. 2: Jewelry, 30 C. Johns, The Jewellery of Roman Britain, London, 1996, 116–17.
Enamels, and Art of the Migration Period, Washington DC, 1965, no. 31 B. Deppert-Lippitz, ‘A Group of Late Antique Jewelry in The Getty
47. Museum’, Studia Varia from The J. Paul Getty Museum 1 (1993),
10 Stephen Zwirn in his lecture ‘Out of the seventh century: where 107–40, at 120–1, fig. 12 a–c.
does some Byzantine jewellery belong?’, given at the British 32 D. Buckton, ‘The beauty of holiness: Opus interrasile from a Late
Museum Byzantine Seminar on ‘Intelligible Beauty: Recent Antique workshop’, Jewellery Studies 1 (1983–84), 15–19, at 15–18,
Research on Byzantine Jewellery’, advanced the theory that the figs 6–7.
bracelet is much older. 33 Heurgon (n. 16), 48–50, fig. 16, pl. V.1 and XXV.
11 A. Yeroulanou, Diatrita: pierced-work gold jewellery from the 3rd to 34 Johns (n. 30), fig. 5.31.
the 7th century, Athens, 1999, no. 232, fig. 91. 35 Yeroulanou (n. 11), no. 201.
12 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. no. 52.76.1; ibid., 36 Lepage (n. 22), 10–12, figs 17–18.
233, fig. 92. See Baldini Lippolis, this volume, Pl. 17. 37 Ibid., 12–13, figs 20–1.
13 For one example, see a bracelet in the Benaki Museum: Ελληνικά 38 Yeroulanou (n. 11), no. 205.
Κοσμήματα (n. 8), no. 103. 39 Buckton (n. 32), 16 and 19, no. 9, fig. 7.
14 Weitzmann (n. 2), no. 282. 40 Gonosová and Kondoleon (n. 23), no. 16.
15 C. Johns and T. Potter, The Thetford Treasure, London, 1983, pl. 3b, 41 Yeroulanou (n. 11), nos 207–8.
no. 26. 42 J. Durand (ed.), Byzance. L’art byzantin dans les collections
16 J. Heurgon, Le Tresor de Ténès, Paris, 1958, 47.2, pl. V,4. publiques françaises (Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre), Paris, no. 75.
17 E. Kypraiou (ed.), Το Ελληνικό Κόσμημα, 6000 χρόνια παράδοση, Κατ. 43 Deppert-Lippitz (n. 31), 114–17, no. 4, fig. 6a–b.
Εκθ. Υπ. Πολιτισμού, Thessalonika, 1997/8, nos 172, 173, 243, 244, 44 Lepage (n. 22), 17, fig. 28.
255. 45 Durand (n. 42), no. 76.
18 É. Coche de la Ferté, Collection Hélène Stathatos: les objets 46 Dennison (n. 20), nos 26–7.
byzantins et post byzantins, Limoges, 1957, nos 14–15, 32, pls III, V. 47 D. Buckton (ed.), Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and
19 Ross (n. 9), no. 46. Culture from British Collections (Exh. cat., British Museum),
20 W. Dennison, A Gold Treasure of the Late Roman Period (University London, 1994, no. 99.
of Michigan Studies in East Christian and Roman Art), New York, 48 Ελληνικά Κοσμήματα (n. 8), no. 113.
1918, nos 30, 31. 49 Ross (n. 9), no. 2A.
21 Ibid., no. 34. 50 A. and J. Stylianou, The Treasures of Lambousa, Nicosia, 1969, 55,
22 C. Lepage, ‘Les bracelets de luxe romains et byzantins du IIe au Vie fig. 43.
siècle: Etude de la forme et de la structure’, Cahiers Archéologiques 51 Dennison (n. 20), nos 32–3.
21 (1971), 1–23, at 5–7, fig. 10. 52 Weitzmann (n. 2), no. 299.
23 A. Gonosová and C. Kondoleon, Art of Late Rome and Byzantium in 53 Dennison (n. 20), nos 28–9.
the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Virginia Museum of Fine 54 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 275.
Arts, Richmond, 1994, nos 13–15. 55 Ibid., no. 282.
24 Kypraiou (n. 17), nos 225 and 231. 56 Ross (n. 9), no. 108.
25 Yeroulanou (n. 11), nos 197, 198. 57 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 284.
26 Ibid., no. 113. 58 Gonosová and Kondoleon (n. 23), no. 18.
27 Ibid., no. 210. 59 Kypraiou (n. 17), no. 285.
28 I. Baldini Lippolis, L’oreficeria nell’impero di Costantinopoli tra IV e 60 Ibid., no. 126.
VII secolo, Bari, 1999, 184, 2.VI.3.C1. 61 Ibid., no. 127.
29 See Yeroulanou (n. 11), 164–9.

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