LATE GEOMETRIC PERIOD, CIRCA 750-725 B.C.

Only a small number of related gold earrings dating to the Geometric period are known. All are thought to have been made in Attica, and due to the similarity of the granulation style seen on several contemporary plaques and earrings found at Eleusis, the production center has been assigned to an “Eleusis school” (see Higgins, op. cit., 1969, p. 148). This pair is each composed of a stout rod, octagonal in section, coiled into a spiral and joined at one end to a large disk and at the other in a biconical element with a rectangular extension. The disk was once centered by an inlay, perhaps of either rock crystal, glass or amber, and the inlay collar is encircled by bands of granulation. Framing the inlay is a broad band of double arcades in granulation, with further bands of granulation at the rim. The reverse has a web pattern at the join of the rod, while each end of the rod has granulated triangles and bands. The biconical element has two opposing triangular cloisons, once inlaid, on the obverse, framed by a granulated meander pattern, with other granulated geometric ornament on the reverse. Both sides of the rectangular extension were also once inlaid.