The beautiful Tyszkiewicz bronze statuette of Aphrodite was acquired in 1900 by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and has even yet a pearl in a fairly good state of preservation suspended from each ear by a spiral thread of gold which passes quite through the gem and also through the lobe of the ear. This statuette has been described as “the most beautiful bronze Venus known.”[22] Professor Froehner considers that it belongs nearer to the period of Phidias (_circa_ 500–430 B.C.) than to that of Praxiteles (_circa_ 400–336 B.C.); but Dr. Edward Robinson does not concur in this opinion, and refers it to the Hellenic period (_circa_ 330–146 B.C.). However, considering the very large accumulations, relatively few pearls of antiquity now remain, and none of these is of great ornamental value. Those in archæological collections and art museums are more or less decayed through the ravages of time and accident to which they have been subjected. While coins, gold jewelry, crystal gems, etc., of ancient civilizations are relatively numerous, the less durable pearls have not survived the many centuries of pillage, waste, and burial in the earth. A well-known instance of this decay is found in the Stilicho pearls, which owe their prominence to the incident of their long burial. The daughters of this famous Roman general, who were successively betrothed to the Emperor Honorius, died in 407 A.D., and were buried with their pearls and ornaments. In 1526, or more than eleven centuries afterward, in excavating for an extension of St. Peter’s, the tomb was opened, and the ornaments were found in fair condition, except the pearls, which were as lusterless and dead as a wreath of last year’s flowers. II MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY II MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY OF PEARLS I’ll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail Rich pearls upon thee. _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act II, sc. 5.