Agate Bead Necklace
Unknown · Achaemenid, c. 350 BC
A string of banded agate beads, about twenty-six centimetres long, alternates round and elongated stones whose natural stripes of brown, white and grey were chosen to catch the eye. The stones are polished to a soft shine and drilled through their length, a slow task with abrasive sand and a bow drill. Look closely at the largest beads, where the concentric bands of the agate form eye-like patterns that ancient wearers valued as protection as much as decoration.
The necklace belonged to the furnishings of a princely tomb discovered in February nineteen hundred and one on the acropolis of Susa by the French mission under Jacques de Morgan. The burial is dated to around three hundred and fifty years before Christ, in the last century of Achaemenid rule, when Susa was one of the royal capitals of the Persian empire. Its owner was laid in a bronze coffin with gold jewellery and precious stones, and the pieces were later shared between Tehran and Paris under the excavation agreement of the time.
Did You Know? The tomb in which the beads were found on the acropolis of Susa held a bronze coffin shaped like a bathtub, one of the richest burials ever found at the site.
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