Gold Ornaments from Crete and Ithaca

In BSA XLIII (1948), 121, G4 (pl. 46), I published a fragment of gold ornament from the votive deposit at Aetos in Ithaca. I described it as a pendant, but was unable to adduce any real parallel. Comparison with a complete object illustrated in BSA XLIX (1954), pl. 27, 1, shows that it is a snake-head finial from one of a pair of chains (or possibly one of a pair of such finials from a single longer chain) which supported a pendant. The broken end of the hook or ring on which the pendant hung is preserved under the snake's chin, and can be seen in the illustration. The complete piece, excavated at Khaniale Tekke (Knossos) by R. W. Hutchinson and published by him, loc. cit. 216 f., formed part of a sealed cache , buried in a small pot in the floor of a tomb. Technically the work goes closely with that of another pendant from the same cache ( loc. cit. , pl. 27, 2), which on stylistic grounds appears, as Mr. Hutchinson points out, to be Cretan of the early or mid-seventh century B.C. The highly stylised snake-head from Aetos is more elaborate than those of the Khaniale Tekke chains, but extremely like them and quite unlike anything else. The treatment of the ‘necks’ is exceedingly similar, and is paralleled in the top bar of the pendant carried by the Khaniale Tekke snakes. The ornament from which the Ithaca piece is broken must certainly have been of the same period as the example from Khaniale Tekke, and quite possibly was also of Cretan origin

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