Anglo-Saxon Fluorite Stone Necklace

Description

The Museum’s fluorite stone necklace is based on a seventh-century original found in the Breach Down Cemetery in Kent, that features 17 hand-carved amethyst beads. Strings of glass beads or, more rarely, amethysts, formed a type of Anglo-Saxon necklace that may have been either worn around the neck or fastened to the owner’s clothing.

Produced in cooperation with the British Museum, London.

Fluorite. Hand knotted. Sterling silver hook and eye closure. 18 ''L x 1/2''W.

Art History

The Anglos and Saxons were Germanic tribes who in the fifth century A.D. settled in the region of Kent in southern England, which had been an outpost of the Roman Empire. Both men and women of the Anglos and Saxons wore jewelry as a badge of rank and dignity. They imported traditions of metalworking that utilized colorful semiprecious stones and interlaced forms to make brooches, pendants, fibulae, and earrings. A substantial amount of early Anglo-Saxon jewelry from the fifth to the seventh centuries has been found in graves in southern England. Strings of glass beads or, more rarely, amethysts, formed a type of Anglo- Saxon necklace that may have been either worn around the neck or fastened to the owner’s clothing.