| DIADEMS
AND CROWNS Ornaments accompanied the well-to-do woman even after her death, so she would be suitably adorned for the afterlife she hoped for. Special jewels were made for these occasions, usually from gold leaf which was printed and cut out. The jewellery was very showy but totally impractical, to be used only for funerals and burials. The most common were crowns of leaves, but also diadems and earrings. The diadem was one of the items used in arranging the woman’s hair. The one from the Montagna dei Cavalli, made from gold leaf impressed with the picture of a ceremonial procession in honour of Dionysus and Arianna, in which myth and reality are intermingled, undoubtedly alludes to the hopes for a future life reserved for the deceased initiated in the mysteries in honour of these divinities. The golden crowns, a symbol of excellence, made their appearance at the end of the archaic period and were a privilege of the aristocracy. They became very popular during the Hellenistic period, especially in the second century BC, to mark out outstanding figures and reward them for their merits or testify to financial fortune or religious pre-eminence. We know from literary sources that rich Italiots and Siceliots visiting the Eastern Mediterranean were honoured by the local communities with the presentation of golden crowns. This happened, for example, to Timon, a business-man from Syracuse, who donated the crown he was given to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delos, the island where his son, the banker Nymphodoros, worked. In general, the leaves and the roses were assembled on a base of perishable material, probably a strip of expensive cloth. |