Description
Prayer beads carved in distinctive black jet with the conjoined, back-to-back heads of Christ and Saint James, both bearded, were popular mementos of the famous pilgrimage shrine dedicated to Saint James (Santiago) at Compostela in Spain. St. James wears the pilgrim’s hat with cockleshell, the badge of his shrine at Compostela. Dealers’ inventories at Compostela record large stocks of jet devotional objects for sale to the pilgrims. Jet was easy to carve and it brilliance was thought to intercept the evil eye. Jet is a dense black coal widely mined in northern Spain. It can be carved and polished to a bright sheen; however, it is brittle and it takes great skill to carve even very small objects.
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