Achaemenid Persian period, 4th century B.C. In the Louvre Museum Collection, Department of Oriental Antiquities and developed for the Réunion des Musées Nationaux. The extraordinary variety of beads on this bracelet illustrates the taste for polychromy so typical of oriental jewelry, which reached its peak during the Persian period. Craftsmen combined dozens of different stones producing contrasts in colors and punctuated by gold beads formed of rows of fine granules, a characteristic of the Achaemenid period. Fire agate, gold plated pewter beads.
