Pendant Necklace in the Shape of the Head of Acheloos
Unknown · c. 480-460 BC
The tiny gold face hanging from this chain is a river god. Acheloos, the greatest river of Greece, was pictured as a bull with a human face, and here you can see his beard, his broad cheeks and the two small horns rising from his hair. The pendant was made from sheet gold hammered into shape, cut out and soldered, with minute gold beads adding texture to the hair and beard. The clasp is missing and a few beads have fallen away, but the shine of the metal is undimmed.
The necklace was found at Chiusi and was made in Etruria between about four hundred and eighty and four hundred and sixty before Christ. Etruscan goldsmiths were famous in antiquity for exactly this kind of work, and heads of Acheloos appear on pendants and earrings across central Italy, where the river god seems to have served as a protective charm against harm. The piece came to the Louvre in the great purchase of eighteen sixty one, the year the museum acquired the Campana collection. The back of the pendant is doubled, with a small opening for threading it onto the chain.
Did You Know? The bearded face on the pendant is a river: Acheloos, the great river of Greece, was imagined as a bull with a human head, and the little horns are still there.
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