Ear rings of Suse

To shape this elegantly simple earring, the silversmith wound a thin sheet of gold on a bitumen core, a malleable material found in the native state.

This classic technique in the ancient East saved the precious metal.

Only one ring of the pair was discovered at Susa, in archaeological levels dating from the time of the Parthian Empire.

If after the conquest of Alexander and the fall of the Persian empire, the ancient city of Suse had definitively lost its rank of capital, it knew, from the reign of the Parthian king Mithridates I, an exceptional period of prosperity.