Gold in antiquity: Did you mean...?

Gold earrings from the Etruscan city of Populonia in north-west Italy. 350-300 BCE. (British Museum, London)

Gold armband with coins of Caracalla and his wife Plautilla, 202–205 CE. (Altes Museum, Berlin)

A gold solidus from Antioch depicting Emperor Julian, 361-363 CE. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Both earrings are placed in a mirror-image position, with the lower surfaces facing each other. Each earring is composed of nine lunar-shaped segments forming a flattened half- ball. The cuneiform signs run vertically from above downward...

Two gold solidus coins depicting Roman emperor Valens, r. 364-378 BCE. Provenance: north-west France. (Vannes Archaeological Museum, France)

The interior hollow surface of the earring. Note how the carved cuneiform signs appear on this side and how the goldsmith joined the “lunar-shaped” segments of the earring. The cuneiform text is read vertically, from the upper surface downwards...

Gold disk earrings with filigree decoration. Tomb 22, southern necropolis, Herakleia, southern Italy. 4th century BCE. (Archaeological Museum of Siritide, Policoro, Italy)

These are the upper surfaces of both earrings, with their concavity facing right. Note that the cuneiform signs are identical on the corresponding sides. A pair of gold earrings, 24 carats, approximately 48 grams. Gift from Shulgi to a chief...

Gold hair ornament from Agrigento, Sicily, 3rd century BCE. The central medallion depicts Medusa. Archaeological Museum of Agrigento.

A Chiriqui gold pendant in the form of a frog. Costa Rica, 1300-1500 CE. (St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri)