Necklace with Medusa Medallion and Coin of Valerian Mounted as Pendant

Description Necklaces incorporating relief medallions were fashionable in the later Roman Empire. Pendants with heads of the Gorgon Medusa, who turned those who gazed at her into stone, had an apotropaic function, averting evil from their wearers. The use of coins in men's and women's jewelry was widespread by the late empire. While primarily worn to display the owner's wealth, the coins themselves were still valuable as bullion and could be used in the event the owner fell upon hard times.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
12/14/1978	Examination	examined for condition

Exhibitions

• Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry from the Walters Art Museum. Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2006-2009.
• Bedazzled: 5,000 Years of Jewelry. El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso. 2010.

Provenance Dikran Kelekian, New York and Paris, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1927, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Inscriptions [Inscription, Latin; obverse] IMP(erator) C(aius) P(ublius) LIC(inianus) VALERIANVS AVG(ustus). [Inscription, Latin; reverse] IOVI CONSERVATORI [Translation] To Jupiter the Preserver

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1927