Spool earring

During the seventh century B.C., the number of personal adornments produced for and worn by Etruscan women increased dramatically. This proliferation reflected the growing wealth of elites, whose tastes and desire for luxury products were stimulated by sumptuous wares imported from Greece, Egypt, and the Near East. Additionally, an influx of goldsmiths from the Levant brought with it advanced metalsmithing technologies, including granulation and filigree--means of surface decoration in which either tiny metal granules or fine wire are fused to a metal surface. Etruscan goldsmiths developed these labor-intensive methods to a high degree, sometimes creating entire figural scenes or complex, geometric patterns out of delicate balls and wires.

Among the jewelry forms popular in Etruria were fibulae, bracelets, and earrings. The baule type of earring, fashionable during the sixth century B.C., consists of a strip of thin gold sheet bent into a cylindrical form with a wire for attachment to the ear. Each of the examples seen here has a curved body divided into three rows of squares, separated by strips of gold arranged in a raised-ribbon pattern. The design in the squares alternates between hollow hemispheres soldered onto the gold substrate and circular clusters of dense granulation with a thin gold-strip border. A pyramid-shaped top, decorated with fine gold wires, granulated gold balls, and a stylized palmette, is attached to the body of each earring by a tube-and-pin hinge that conceals the mechanizm of the flat ear wire. Such earrings are among the finest of Etruscan innovations.