A large group of mainly Near Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean beads and amulets
Late...

A large group of mainly Near Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean beads and amulets

Late 5th Millennium B.C. - 1^st Millennium A.D. and Later

Including fourteen shell, calcite and white stone amulets: a standing horned bull with concentric circle designs engraved, 3.8cm x 4.9cm; a smaller standing bull, 3cm x 2cm; two recumbent bulls, 4cm max length; two small twin-headed bird pendants, 2.4cm max width; a cockerel, 2.3cm high; a miniature standing bull, 10mm long; a miniature mouse pendant, 13mm long; the foreparts of a bull pendant; 26mm long; two pomegranate-shaped pendants, 15mm high; a disc pendant with incised detail; 2.7cm high, loop damaged; a bell-shaped pendant with concentric circle designs incised on one side, 17mm high, and a Byzantine alabaster cross pendant with concentric circle designs, 3.2cm high; a banded agate eye bead, 4.4cm diam; an obsidian discoid bead, with incised feather pattern, 23mm long; seventeen mainly mosaic glass beads, including four barrel-shaped glass beads with suspension hoops, 2.7cm 4.8cm long; five barrel-shaped beads, including a red and yellow ribbon bead set into a green matrix, a red feathered bead in a black matrix, 2.5cm - 4cm; a small cylindrical bead with red, blue and white feathering, 2.7cm long, and a millefiori glass bead with yellow terminals, 3cm long, one end chipped; a spherical bead with mosaic chequerboard design, 11mm diam, five other cylindrical, spherical and barrel-shaped beads; fifteen stone or bone spindle whorls or beads, mainly with incised concentric decoration on the sloping surface, 10mm-36mm diam; a group of glass pendants, amulets and tokens, including a blue and yellow miniature handled vessel, 2cm high; a bird, 2cm long; two moulded pendants with a lion, another with a head, another with a frog, and three other glass pendants; four translucent glass fly pendants, 16mm - 20mm; sixteen glass pendants, beads, inlays and artefacts including a twin spiral bead, 14mm long; and a collection of earrings, including two similar shell hooped earrings, 2.1cm diam, and twelve bronze hopped earrings, mainly with beads of either glass or stone pendant below, and a gold hooped earring with an iridescent glass bead pendant below, and two recumbent amuletic bulls, 4cm long, Not Ancient (a lot)

Provenance:

Collection of Lady Gloria Dale (1922-2013), London, acquired during the 1960s-1972.

Christie's London Antiquities, 30 April 2008, lot 68.
UK private collection acquired from the above auction.