Fig. 7 Bronze reliquary cross engraved on the front with a bust of Christ Pantocrator. On the back the inscription: A.KÙÍCTANTHNOC, probably the namesake and patron saint of the owner. 
10th-11th century. 
Athens, Benaki Museum, inv.no 11412. Dimensions: 10 X 5.7cm.

Fig. 11 . Gold necklace of 32 spherical beads with lacy floral decoration. Length: 87 cm.
 l7th - l8th centuries. Athens, 
Byzantine Museum, T 501a

Fig. 9 Encolpium with Christ Pantocrator. 12th century in 16th century mount. Rock crystal, gold, gemstones and pearls. At the center of the encolpium an octagonal rock crystal cameo with a bust of the Pantocrator. Around the halo the inscription: IC XC РANTOKPAT/OP
Athens, Benaki Museum, inv. no. 2115. Dimensions: 6.1 X 6cm

Fig. 10 Athens, Byzantine Museum, T 1664. Silver ring with circular bezel bearing the monogram-seal BЛACIOC O MEЛAXPHNOC. 
l3th - l4th centuries.
Diameter: 2.8 cm. 

Fig. 8 Gold pericarpium consisting of two semi cylindrical sections of sheet metal with repousse decoration, linked by pins. On each section a broad zone of chased lions, griffins and birds inscribed in five tangent circles. Around the zone a narrow frame of inlaid niello. The most refined pericarpia were courtly ornaments worn by the empress's maids-in-waiting. 
Athens, P and A. Canellopoulos Museum, inv no 14. Diam. 7ch. H. 3 cm.

Diadems, gold and gem-studded ornaments for the hair, chains with lovely pendants, coins, encolpia and pectoral crosses; earrings, rings, pericarpia, bracelets, belts, buckles, buttons; these are the kosmia or kosmidia with which Byzantine women, and .men too, adorned themselves. Conspicuous signs of nobility, social status, office, vanity, taste and wealth, valuable ornaments of the marriage rite and costly mementoes of joy, their haughty power vanquish- es the commandments of Christian humility and simplicity recommended by the Fathers of the Church. Plain and modest or intricate and opulent, they accord with the concept of grandeur and reigned in the life of the Byzantines, giving their felicitous owners delicate aesthetic pleasure.

The amount of jewellery preserved in Greek and foreign museums, private collections and the sacristies of churches and monasteries is extremely small in relation to the compass and duration of the Byzantine Empire. Many pieces were pan of private treasures (hoards), hidden in the earth in times of danger and invasion, along with other precious possessions, often with tightly sealed silver and gilt vessels, as well as coins that date them exactly. Ornaments from hoards, sporadic finds from excavations, keimelia from sacristies; Byzantine jewellery has been recovered from Constantinople, Asia Minor, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Syria and Egypt; from France, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Crimea and Georgia, which lands it reached - as elsewhere - via the routes of trade, diplomacy and war. In their way these pieces too bear witness to the superiority, the artistic influence and radiance of Byzantium in the Medieval world, in the world beyond its borders to which these jewels were sometimes sent as choice imperial gifts to foreign rulers.
The Byzantine jewellery extant today - more from certain periods such as the seventh century, less from others - gives but a circumstantial and certainly incomplete picture of this Flourishing art that combined gold- and silver-smithing with glyptic and the outstanding minor art of Byzantium, enamelling, frequently in works of superb symmetry and splendid coloration, incomparable technique and masterly execution. The finest pieces are attributed to the workshops of Constantinople.

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