UN COLIER DIN AUR CU PANDANTIVE ŞI O PERECHE DE CERCEI, DIN AUR, DIN SITUL CETĂŢII DACICE DE LA CĂPÂLNA (COM. SĂSCIORI, JUD. ALBA)
A GOLDEN NECKLACE WITH PENDANTS AND A PAIR OF GOLDEN EARRINGS FROM DACIAN FORTRESS CĂPÂLNA (SĂSCIORI VILLAGE, ALBA COUNTY)

Summary/Abstract: The present paper deals with a recovered hoard of gold Hellenistic style jewelries, stolen in 2001 from the Dacian fortress of Căpâlna. After 7 year of illegal trafficking of the artifacts on the black market of antiquities, the Romanian law enforcements recovered the hoard from Germany, with the generous support of an expert from Frankfurt am Main. An important detail is the reconstruction of the ”discovery circumstances” inside of the protected area of Căpâlna fortress, by the archaeological poachers from Deva (Hunedoara County). The description of the pieces is also an important part of the study. The necklace has a main body made of thin, gold wire, with a circular profile and is tightly interlaced in the link in link style. In its median area has 27 pendants – one is missing and another one is cut in half. The wire, with a diameter of 0.53 and to 0.59 mm, was obtained through a quite rudimentary process of drawing. The wire is slightly twisted to give the jewel an extra ornamental look. The main body is made up of five interlaced gold braid. The pendants, which all end in a pearl also made of fine, gold, twisted and soldered wire, are made in the Hellenistic filigree technique out of thin, twisted wire, half of them being full, while the other half have a twisted wire in the middle area which gives the impression of an empty space. The pendants are distributed alternatively with the exception of the first two near ”end B”. The ends of the necklace are reinforced with a tube, made in rolled and soldered foil, with a soldered link. The closing system is very simple, consisting of a thicker metal-wire clasp of 15 mm. The wire of the clasp is made through cold peering. The gold earrings are made in the same Hellenistic style of a ”Herakles knot”, out of three gold wires, incompletely soldered and partially sectioned, to echo the aspect of pearls. The wires were produced through drawing and were then modeled with a special pair of tongs. The shackle is delineated by the rest of the earring through a circular band made of three gold, soldered wires and decorated in the pseudo-filigree technique. The body of the earrings is decorated with two rosettes in front and behind a cabochon, made in the pseudo-filigree technique, and an artificial brown stone (”bromide”), made of semitransparent glass paste, set in the cabochon. The items come from a Western Balkan workshop around the inhabited by the Danubian Celts, located on the northern territory of Serbia and the western part of nowadays region of Banat (Romania). Nevertheless, one should not completely exclude the possibility that the items were made in a roving workshop on the territory of South-western Dacia. The technique used and the style of decoration prove the assimilation of late Hellenistic and Italic influences. The composition of the gold alloy is similar to the one used by jewelers in the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.

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