Some remarks on early fifth-century gold necklaces with pin-shaped pendants. with regard to an ancient find from La Valleta del Valero (Soses, Lleida, Spain)

Abstract

In 1950, a gold necklace was found by a local grave digger in the site called La Valleta del Valero, about 15 km south-west of Lleida (Catalonia). The necklace deserved little attention in scientific literature; it has been repeatedly dated to 3rd - 2nd centuries BC and related to Hellenistic influences in Spanish Iron Age luxury metalwork. The necklace finds its closest analogies in a small group of gold artefacts found in Central and Eastern Europe and dating to the first half of the 5th century AD. Traces of almost identical necklaces with pin-shaped pendants have been found at Hochfelden (Lower Rhine, France), Untersie-benbrunn (Lower Austria), Kerc' (Crimea, Ukraine), Bakodpuszta (county Bacs-Kiskun, Hungary) and Biron (Charente-Maritime, France). The find from Valleta del Valero appears to be one of the keys to the evaluation of the significance of the occurence of necklaces with pin-shaped pendants in such territories. Both its geographical location - in still Roman Tarraconensis - and its morphology show it to be a link between Untersiebenbrunn-Gospital'naja type necklaces and late Roman metalwork, posing a number of questions about production, distribution and symbolic value of luxury necklaces around the Mediterranean basis and the barbarian world.