The Golden Age of Hellenistic Jewellery: Art, Craft, and Symbolism at the Benaki Museum

The exhibition “Art in Gold. Jewellery in Hellenistic Times” is presented at the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture and will run through to 27 April 2025. In addition to objects from the Benaki Museum collections, the exhibition includes works from 30 museums and Ephorates of Antiquities in Greece, and five European museums. (Cover Photo: Gold hair ornament with a bust of the goddess Athena on the emblem from the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, late 3^rd – early 2^nd c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum)

The aim of the exhibition is to present items of jewellery as objects replete with meaning and to explore the techniques of their making. It concentrates on the art of gold during the Hellenistic period, which commences conventionally in 323 BCΕ, year of the death of Alexander the Great, and lasts until 30 BCΕ, when Rome annexed Egypt. In the Hellenistic Ecumene, which extended from the Adriatic to Afghanistan and from Ethiopia as far as today’s Ukraine, a vast network of kingdoms and cities was established. Within these borders, there was a constant movement of diverse, multilingual populations, including many artisans exchanging knowledge and information. It was precisely this exchange that led to an extraordinary flourishing of technical know-how and a cultural osmosis that proved decisive in the development and consolidation of a shared artistic language, expressed even in the jewellery of the period. The unprecedented quantity of gold which Alexander the Great appropriated from the treasuries of the Persian kings is manifested in this jewellery. The conspicuous display of luxury, apparent in the ‘baroque’ aesthetic of the pieces, the complex techniques, the almost superfluous extravagance, and the increased use of precious and semiprecious stones reflect the ideology of Hellenistic monarchy. (Source: Benaki M u seum)

Gold earrings with tiny figures of Muses playing the lyre, late 4^th c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold earrings with pendants in the form of bull’s heads and acorns. From ancient Lete (Derveni), Thessaloniki, Macedonia, 330-300 BC, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (right)

A wide variety of jewelry types were produced in the Hellenistic period—earrings, necklaces, pendants, pins, bracelets, armbands, thigh bands, finger rings, wreaths, diadems, and other elaborate hair ornaments. And jewelry was frequently produced in matched sets. Many pieces were inlaid with pearls and dazzling gems or semi-precious stones—emeralds, garnets, carnelians, banded agates, sardonyx, chalcedony, and rock crystal. Artists also incorporated colorful enamel inlays that dramatically contrasted with their intricate gold settings. Elaborate subsidiary ornamentation drew plant and animal motifs, or the relation between adornment and the goddess, Aphrodite, and her son Eros. Airborne winged figures, such as Eros, Nike, and the eagle of Zeus carrying Ganymede up to Mount Olympus, were popular designs for earrings (Source: THE MET – Hellenistic Jewelry)

Part of a gold necklace with beads of semiprecious stones and a lynx head terminal, 1^st c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold finger-ring of wires in the form of snakes and bezels set with emeralds and garnets. From Alexandria, Egypt, 1st c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum (right)

In the exhibition, items of gold jewellery, a female prerogative par excellence, are approached as means of promoting a person’s social status and wealth, as companions at critical stages in the life cycle (coming-of-age, marriage, death), as objects with amuletic and apotropaic properties, as votive offerings to deities, as investments of economic capital, and as adornments for the dress and the body.

Apart from items of jewellery, which form the core of the exhibition, terracotta figurines and decorated vases illustrate the way in which jewellery was worn.

Terracotta bust of a young woman with a painted depiction of her necklace. From the Hellenistic necropolis of Amphipolis, Macedonia, 3^rd c. BC, Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres/Archaeological Museum of Amphipolis (left), Attic black-glaze pyxis with gilded decoration of necklace motifs. 330-320 BC. Athens, Benaki Museum (the vase-type known as pyxis had small size and was used as a container for cosmetics and jewellery) (right)

At the centre of the exhibition gallery is the so-called ‘Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard’, which is held at the Benaki Museum and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Destined for use by women, these exquisite creations of the jeweller’s craft have been attributed to an important Macedonian workshop and probably belonged to members of the Macedonian royal court.

Gold necklace with woven band and rows of pendants. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, late 3^rd– early 2^nd c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum

Gold precious diadem with the central part formed as a Herakles Knot. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, Late 3^rd – early 2^nd c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum

Gold torque with lunx heads at the terminals. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, 2^nd c. BC., Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold finger-ring with an intaglio representation of the goddess Nike (personification of victory. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, early 2^nd c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum (right)

The ‘Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard’ is an impressive set of 44 gold artifacts, 9 of which are in the Benaki Museum and 35 in the Nat i onal Archaeological Museum, as part of the Eleni and Antonios Stathatos Collection, whichcomprises some 970 objects which cover all the periods of Greek civilization, from prehistory (5^th millennium BC) to modern times (18^th century). It is currently a part of the Vase and Minor Objects Collection of the National Archaeological Museum. The artifacts from “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard” were donated in 1957 by Eleni Stathatou, who had acquired them in 1929 from an antique dealer in Athens. According to an unverified testimony, the treasure was found in Karpenisi, Central/Western Greece. However, the exact circumstances of their discovery are not known. It shows similarities with ensembles from southern ancient Thessaly, such as the “Dimitrias Hoard” kept in the National Archaeological Museum or the jewelry in the collection of the Princeton University Museum. All of the above findings come from richly endowed female burials, highlighting an economically robust community with a strong social and economic stratification, of important settlements of southern Thessaly.

In 1966, the late actress Elena Nathanael participated in a highly aesthetic photo shoot in the Atrium of the National Archaeological Museum for the magazine Paris Match by the famous photographer Jack Garofalo, as part of the country’s cultural promotion. She posed next to the famous Lion of Kerameikos, wearing top masterpieces from the Collection of Eleni Stathatou at the National Archaeological Museum. Both the collector and the Ministry of Culture approved this photo shoot. It was the first and last time that archaeological treasures were worn by a model: the archaic ‘Earring of the Sphinxes’ from Argos, one of the two elaborate armlets and the finger choker ‘of the Snakes’ from the “Karpenisi Hoard”, and a necklace from Troy. (Source: evrytanikospalmos.gr, Photo by Jack Garofalo/Paris Match via Gettyimages)

Α section of the exhibition is dedicated to the technology of Hellenistic goldsmithing, researched for the first time ever in microscopic detail by the Benaki Museum Department of Conservation. It includes the contents of a second-century BCE jeweller’s toolkit, on loan from the National Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A video records a three-year-long process of experimental archaeology, during which a portion of a priceless Hellenistic gold diadem in the Benaki Museum collection was reconstructed by Akis Goumas, a contemporary jeweller and researcher into the techniques of ancient Greek jewellery-making. To introduce the basic techniques of Hellenistic jewellery, specially commissioned animation videos reconstruct how five items in the Benaki Museum collection were made.

Gold wreath of flowering myrtle. From a grave in the ancient Pydna cemetery, Pieria, Macedonia, 350-325 BC, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki

Irini Papageorgiou, archaeologist and curator at the Benaki Museum told Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), “The initial idea took form nearly eight years ago when I first collaborated with Akis Goumas, jeweller and researcher of ancient jellery making techniques. I proposed that he reconstruct section of the diadem from the Thessaly Hoard, a precious and valuable diadem of extremely complicated construction. Within about 3.5 years, Akis Goumas reconstructed a section of the knitted chain and one of the two plaques shown in the section on technology”. Papageorgiou added, “Hellenistic jewellery reconstructions have been carried out by others also, but with modern tools. The difference – and the innovation we provide in the reconstruction – is that we found traces of ancient tools on the original piece of jewellery, and we were based on these to construct the tools we show at the exhibition and which were used in the experimental application”. (Source: ANA-MPA)

The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to jewellery by eight contemporary artists who drew inspiration for their creations from Hellenistic-period items in the Benaki Museum.

Akis Goumas, Honoris Causa I, 2024, Brooch with elements from the plaquette of the large diadem from the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, Κ24 gold, steel, thin iron foil, Hammering, filigree (spiral beaded, twisted wire), following the Hellenistic tradition (left), Dimitris Nikolaidis, Daisies, 2024, Impressed, hammered foils of oxidized titanium, K22 and K24 gold wires, K24 gold foil, Inspired by a Hellenistic necklace in the Benaki Museum collection (right)

Permanent exhibition of gold jewellery at the National Archaeological Museum

The Collection of gold jewels of the National Archaeo l ogical Museum is one of the most significant in the world due to the quality and uniqueness of the artefacts it consists of, but also due to the certified origin of many of these. The exhibition of gold jewellery that opened its gates to the public in February 2009 is presented in Room 62 on the upper floor of the National Archaeological Museum. It is the first ever display of objects made of precious materials, which were kept in the Museum’s treasury. Along with the gold and silver jewellery, silver vessels, sealstones and works of minor arts made of ivory are also on show. Superb creations of goldsmithing coming from different regions of mainland Greece and the islands are displayed in 24 showcases. They have been made either by hammering or casting, whereas their decoration involves repousse, filigree, incision or granulation and, in later times they were inlaid with precious and semiprecious stones. Their time span covers the period from the Geometric to the Roman times. The exhibition is chronologically arranged and whenever possible, as a result of their certified provenance, the artefacts are presented as excavation ensembles or topographic entities. (Source: National Archaeo l ogical Museum)