Ornaments of this same epoch, like those in the British Museum from
Ialysos in Rhodes, and Enkomi in Cyprus, have been discovered throughout
the whole Ægean district. They are likewise mainly in the form of gold
plates used for sepulchral purposes, ornamented with embossed patterns
impressed from stone moulds. Some of them are enriched with fine
granulation. This particular process, however, which abounds in Etruscan
work, is more frequent on Greek ornaments of the archaic epoch, which
dates roughly from about the seventh or eighth century B.C. The types of
these, generally semi-Oriental in character, show the influence of
Phoenician art, with its traces of Egyptian and Assyrian feeling.
Lions and winged bulls on some objects betray the Assyrian style; the
treatment of the human figure displays on others the influence of Egypt.
Among the best examples of this Græco-Phoenician jewellery are those
found at Kameiros in Rhodes, and now in the Louvre and the British
Museum. Between these and the fourth-century jewels from the Crimea to
be described next, the only known Greek jewels are the quasi-Oriental
ones from the tombs of Cyprus, which belong to about the fifth century.
The jewellery of ancient Greece, which requires more detailed
consideration, is that worn from the close of the fifth century onwards.
The jewellery of the Greeks at this epoch was, like all their other
works of art, of surpassing excellence. Gold was wrought with a skill
which showed how well the artist appreciated the beauty of its colour
and its distinctive qualities of ductility and malleability. The Greek
craftsman was ever careful to keep the material in strict subordination
to the workmanship, and not to allow its intrinsic worth so to dominate
his productions as to obscure his artistic intention. The Greek
goldsmiths excelled in the processes of repoussé, chasing, engraving,
and of intaglio cutting on metal, and brought to great perfection the
art of soldering small objects on to thin surfaces and joining together
the thinnest metal plates.
[Illustration: _PLATE III_ EARLY GREEK JEWELLERY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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