CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

This necklace is composed of forty-five pendants in the shape of pointed elements with human heads surmounted by rosettes. The motif of head-shaped beads probably entered the Etruscan repertoire from Magna Graecia and was used as a building element of both necklaces and earrings. A gold necklace composed of similar beads with rosettes and female heads over pointed elements (either plain like the present example or fluted) is now in the collection of the Penn Museum, inv. no. MS4021.
For another earlier example of gold necklace with beads in the shape of female heads and silenus heads, see no. 265 in M. Cristofani, L'Oro degli Etruschi, Novara, 1983, p. 316, now in the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, inv. no. 15951.