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South Arabian Gold Jewellery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Geoffrey Turner
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Extract

The jewellery published here forms part of the Muncherjee Collection, a large assemblage of South Arabian antiquities formed by an Indian businessman and acquired some years ago by the Aden Museum. Until recently a group of this jewellery was on loan to the British Museum, and I was there able to study it by the kind permission of Dr. R. D. Barnett and with the generous assistance of his staff. I am also grateful to the Aden Museum authorities for granting me permission to publish the jewellery. The drawings accompanying this article are the work of Miss Ann Seawright. By reason of their accuracy and accomplishment, they are far more descriptive than any verbal catalogue I am able to compose.

This article is intended only as a preliminary study of South Arabian jewellery. The group here described forms approximately a quarter of that in the Aden Museum collection, and it is hoped that at a later date a more detailed study of the whole collection will prove possible. In the meanwhile, any comments and observations on comparative and related material will be most welcome. With the exception of epigraphic sources, a survey of any facet of the South Arabian civilization is seriously hampered by the lack of stratigraphically excavated material, and although much has been brought to light by other means, especially sculpture, few serious attempts have been made to analyse the complex art forms of this culture. Likewise in this article I do not attempt a comprehensive analysis of the stylistic origins and development of the jewellery, but restrict myself to a simple description of the various pieces, quoting where possible any relevant parallels or comparisons.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1973 , pp. 127 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1973

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References

1 A catalogue of the Muncherjee Collection was made by Gerald Harding, but it remains unpublished and I have not had access to a copy of it. A few of the items of jewellery are illustrated by Bossert in Altsyrien, and by Brian Doe, Southern Arabia, as referred to below.

2 Thompson, G. Caton, The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha (Hadramaut), 88, and pls. XXXVIII 15 and XLIV 1–3Google Scholar.

3 Caton Thompson, op. cit., 101–103.

4 For double bust but not Janus seals see A. D. H. Bivar, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Stamp Seals II: The Sassanian Dynasty, pl. 4 BB 1–4. I am grateful to Dr. Bivar for his dating of this seal.

5 Illustrated by Doe, op. cit., pl. VIII.

6 Doe, op. cit., pl. VIII.

7 Illustrated by Doe, op. cit., pl. VIII.

8 Marshall, op. cit., pl. IX.

9 Marshall, op. cit., pl. XXIII.

10 Illustrated by Bossert, op. cit., Tafel 1379.

11 All illustrated by Doe, op. cit., pl. VII.

12 Bossert illustrated another necklace on which are strung six beads of type no. 1 (op. cit., Tafel 1376), which may indicate either that these have been rearranged since he photographed them, or that the original number of these beads which doubtless come from the same item of jewellery have been split up to be threaded in their present form.

13 On Mesopotamian inscribed “eye” stones, see Lambert, W. G., RA 63 (1969), 65–71Google Scholar.

14 Iraq 33 (1971), 110 and Plate XXX a and d (ND 5325)Google Scholar. References are also given here to similar beads from Altintepe and Ziwiye—Hyslop, K. R. Maxwell, Western Asiatic Jewellery, 200, 207 ff, and pls. 154 and 163Google Scholar.

15 Maxwell Hyslop, op. cit., 158, (BM 1551).