Cleveland Museum of Art

Pair of Earrings or Hair Ringlets with Ram Head

Date

400s BCE

Medium

gold

Culture

Greece, Hellenistic period

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The main spiral body of this ornament is made from a hollow tube, decorated in the center with a double palmette. Each end of the ornament is capped with a ram’s head above an elaborate collar. There are no join seams on the main tube, meaning it must have been cast as a spiral or otherwise as a tapered tube that was then bent into shape. Scholars believe that these helical pieces were used as earrings (perhaps with a separate attachment) or to hold hair in place. Each of the ram heads was cast in two parts, as indicated by the visible seam down the middle of each head.

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