OBO Ancient Roman Gold & black bead necklace in New York, NY

An exceptional, rare, late Hellenistic or early Roman gold necklace with incised steatite beads, dating to approximately 50 B.C. The intricate necklace is composed of solid gold figure-of-eight form links, attached to thin twisted wire swivels, onto which are threaded cylindrical incised steatite beads. A thick looped swivel adorns the necklace at the back, with release catch. One of the finest, genuine ancient necklaces we have seen. Microscopic examination reveals thin helical lines on the wire, indicating that the wire was made in ancient times by the block-twisting method. This method involved tightly twisting a long gold rod of square section, then rolling it between blocks of wood. This was the form of wire making favored by the Greek, Etruscan and Roman jewelers, long before modern draw plates. For further reading see A. Oddy, The production of gold wire in antiquity, Gold Bulletin 3