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Gold earplugs, from an Early Bronze Age pithos burial at Eski Balıkhane (EB 69.3) (Nos. 2-3). (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Pair of Gold “earplugs”
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 2-3
- Date
- Ca. 2500-2000 BC, Early Bronze Age
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 168-169
- Museum Inventory No.
- 168-169
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- M69.007; M69.008
- Material
- Gold
- Object Type
- Jewelry and Ornaments
- Site
- Ahlatlı Tepecik
- Sector
- BT
- Trench
- EB 69.1
- Locus
- EB 69.1 Locus Burial EB 69.3
- Description
- Two bullet-shaped “earplugs,” made of sheets of argentiferous gold wrapped around a core of dark material. Conical terminal with hatched decoration; concave shaft with flat end. Tips pierced. Length 0.023 m; diameter of conical end 0.009 m.
- Comments
- From an Early Bronze Age grave at Ahlatlı Tepecik on the shore of the Gygaean Lake (Grave 69.3), with Nos. 1-6. “Similar objects have been found in contemporary contexts elsewhere in Western Anatolia, see Mellink 1966, 148” (Waldbaum 1983, 122). Analysis reveals a varying composition of 82.4-93.4% gold, 5.9-14.9% silver, which is consistent with unrefined natural gold from the Pactolus River. (However, please see Greenewalt, Gold and Silver Refining - Final Questions for new information on the gold from the Pactolus River.)
- See Also
- Greenewalt, “Introduction”; Roosevelt, “Lydia Before the Lydians”.
- Bibliography
- Hanfmann et al. 1970, 16, fig. 5; Waldbaum 1983a, nos. 717, 718, with further bibliography; Dedeoğlu 2003, 12-13, fig.
- Author
- NDC