Throughout the second phase of the Bronze Age in Greece
jewellery-making continued to progress, with the appearance of new types of
ornaments and the development of more sophisticated techniques. This is most
striking on Crete with its high civilization, marked by the founding of the
first palaces. The Minoan workshops with their advanced technology produced
jewellery of remarkable skill and sensitivity, such as the famous gold pendant
with a pair of bees or wasps, from Chrysolakkos, Mallia. This culminating
achievement of the goldsmith's art bears witness to a knowledge of such
difficult techniques as granulation and filigree. Renowned too are the gold
ornaments from the so-called 'Aegina Treasure'. Most probably of Minoan
provenance and dated to the l7th - l6th centuries BC, this treasure includes
beads and pendants of gold combined with semi-precious stones such as sard, rock
crystal, amethyst and green jasper, gold rings and earrings, sheet gold in
different shapes and gold diadems with repousse decoration. Impressive are the
earrings and the large pendants with elaborate designs alluding to oriental
models.
Other jewels known from different regions of Crete, mainly
tombs at Knossos and in the Mesara region, encompass a variety of types, such as
ear- rings, bracelets, pins, rings and beads of semi-precious stones.
Jewellery is rare on the Greek mainland in the Middle Bronze Age, due to
temporary interruption of economic and cultural developments that began in the
preceding period. Only towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age did jewellery
comparable to that of Crete appear, almost exclusively of funerary provenance.
The best known examples were found in the royal Shaft Graves of Grave Circles A
and B at Mycenae, and are more characteristic of the Early Mycenaean period
Greece
