The jewels embrace a beautiful gold torque weighing 385 grams (something
over one pound Troy). The hoop terminates in two lions’ heads having
cheeks of turquoise, while on the muzzle is a lapis lazuli flanked by
two turquoises; on the top of the head is a plate of mother-of-pearl.
Bracelets similar in design and decoration to the torque go to complete
the parure. Of even greater interest than the gold torque was a
three-row pearl necklace, 238 of the pearls being still more or less
well preserved; originally there must have been from 400 to 500 of them.
Still another valuable necklace consists of 400 beads of precious or
ornamental stone material and 400 gold beads. The stones represented are
turquoise, lapis lazuli, emerald, agate, various jaspers, red and blond
carnelian, feldspar, jade (?), hyaline and milky quartz, amethyst of a
pale violet hue, hematite, several marbles and breccia. A fourth
necklace had a row of beads and pendants incrusted with carnelian, lapis
lazuli and turquoise; here the sharp contrast of the bright red
carnelian disturbs the harmonious effect produced by the combination of
the dark blue lapis lazuli and the light blue turquoise.
The detached amulets are of various forms, one figuring a sphinx with a
ram’s head; this was in white paste with green enamel. Another, of gold,
was rudely fashioned in the form of a lion or a cat, and there was also
a dove of lapis lazuli, poorly executed, the amulets (mainly of Egyptian
type) being of very inferior workmanship as compared with the jewels.
Still they serve to confirm the belief that this heaping up in the tomb
of all the dearest treasures cherished in life, was intended to exert a
post-mortem influence upon the after-life of the dead woman.
That some of the Hebrew patriots who fought under the banner of Judas
Maccabæus toward the middle of the second century B.C. were tinged with
the prevailing superstition regarding amulets, appears in a passage of
the second book of Maccabees, where it is stated that when Judas
collected together for burial the bodies of those patriots who had
fallen in battle before Odolla, they were found to have worn beneath
their tunics certain idolatrous amulets, a custom strictly forbidden to
the Jews. Their death was then looked upon as a signal instance of
divine justice, which “had made hidden things manifest,” and Judas
exhorted the people to take this lesson to heart and guard themselves
from sin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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