Pair of Earrings with Tortoises

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Pair of Earrings with Tortoises

Pakistan, Taxila region (?), 1st-2nd century
Jewelry and Adornments; earrings
Repoussé and sheet gold with granulation
2 1/4 x 1/2 x 3/8 in. (5.72 x 1.27 x .95 cm)
Anonymous gift (M.85.282a-b)
South and Southeast Asian Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

This delicate pair of gold earrings is one of a small corpus of surviving gold ornaments from ancient South Asia....
This delicate pair of gold earrings is one of a small corpus of surviving gold ornaments from ancient South Asia. Characterized by exquisite workmanship, the goldsmithing techniques included repoussé and sheet gold as well as fine granulation. Many of the extant examples were excavated from burial mounds in the Taxila region of present-day Pakistan and tumuluses in northern Afghanistan. The upper element of each earring depicts a repoussé tortoise viewed from above. Beneath it is a hinged pendant is in the form of a conical cylinder embellished with bands and triangular clusters of granulations and terminated with hollow spheres and beads with granules. Comparable examples of ancient South Asian gold jewelry are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1981.398.3) and Cleveland Museum of Art (1973.66).
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Bibliography

  • Pal, Pratapaditya. Indian Sculpture, vol.1. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University of California Press, 1986.