Central Europe, Danube Region, possibly Ottomány (Otomani) culture, Late Bronze Age, ca. 1500 BCE. This is one of our favorite pieces, a beautiful and wearable collection of 3500 year old bronze! The necklace is composed of small, flat beads interspersed with six hanging double lunula pendants; the centerpiece is a large plaque with a punched line of stippling around its front edge. The Danube, Europe's longest river, rises in the Black Forest in modern-day southern Germany, and flows through major cities like Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade, before draining through a large delta into the Black Sea. The river's name is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word for river, "danu". During the Bronze Age, prestige items like this one would have been traded along the length of the river. Size: 25.3" L (64.3 cm).

A very similar piece is published in Cf. H. Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der Vorgeschichte Vol. 4. Bronzezeit (Munich 1980) 181ff., pl. 293 E9.

Provenance: Ex-private Swiss collection.

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