A Medieval Islamic necklace comprising of 18 bell pendants, 12 coin pendants and 39 bi-conical beads. The bell pendants are of drop-shaped convex form, each side with a leaf-shaped motif, the lower edges have granulated decoration. The suspension attachments on the coins and bell pendants with a quatrefoil rosette motif form the base with a sphere, with a central aperture above.
The coins, whose inscriptions were readable, were minted in Merv, Madinat al-Salam (Baghdad) and Misr (Cairo), and are dated between AH 205-61/ AD 820-75.
The construction of the various components of this necklace is consistent with jewellery of the Medieval period in the Islamic world. The granulated wire on the opening edges of the bells and the bi-conical beads is an unusual form that can be paralleled in Central Asian goldwork in the 11th - 12th Century AD.
Evidence that the bells and coin pendants were mounted at the same time is supported by the identical quatrefoil rosette motifs forming the base for the suspension attachments on both types of component; and that the bell and coin pendants belong with the bi-conical beads is shown by the same granular edging on both the bells and the beads. Both the quatrefoil rosettes and leaf-shaped motifs recall later Roman-Egyptian jewellery, something also seen on Medieval jewellery.
Coin set necklaces were fashionable in later Roman and Byzantine times, and again in later Islamic jewellery; however, coin-set ornaments are rare in jewellery of the Medieval Islamic Period.
