Jewelry

Most jewelry pieces found in the Sistan survey were of three kinds: glass bangles, simple bronze finger rings, and individual ceramic beads separated from the rest of the string. Excavations at several sites produced several modest hoards of jewelry that were never recovered by their original owners after being hidden. One hoard from a store room in Area B at Parthian period Sehyak included a gold ring and an unusual imported potsherd. In the excavations of House 183A another hoard included a complete tortoise shell bangle. Several other locations in the Houses 183 excavation produced additional modest pieces of jewelry.

A common form of jewelry from Islamic times were glass bangles, numerous fragments of which were picked up on the surface of Shahr-i Gholghola in 1971.

A complete tortoise shell bangle was excavated in a hoard at the lowest level of a room in Timurid House 183A with parts of a copper ring, several bone and stone beads, pieces of glass bangles, a wooden comb, and pieces of shell, wood, and horn. Other modest bits of jewelry were found in other parts of the Houses 183 excavations.

Ceramic beads were common objects of adornment and were found on the surface at numerous sites. Their firing style matched that of the ceramics—hard fired red pottery for the pre-Islamic ones and lighter, softer beads in later periods (left), such as these from the surface of Shahr-i Gholghola.

This gold ring was excavated along with an ostrich egg, a small juglet, a paste bead, and an unusual imported sherd with wax decoration in a store room in Area B of Parthian Sehyak.

Back to Objects