424 Rovina
London.14 The most common earrings in Sardinia—often large—are basket-
shaped ones, with filigree or thin metal-foil, goblet-shaped pendants with
stones or glass paste, of the sort widely known in Byzantine regions, both in the
East and West. Also common are breast-shaped types, that is, with a spherical
catch with four protuberances documented up until now only in Sardinia, and
thus probably of local production (Fig. 16.8).15
Sure evidence of jewelry production in Sardinia lies in a double lithic mold
discovered in Cagliari in a seventh- to eighth-century context. It features
14 On the earring from Siligo, see Guglielmo Maetzke, “Siligo (Sassari). Resti di edificio ro-
mano e tombe di epoca tardo imperiale a S. Maria di Mesumundu,” Notizie degli Scavi
dei Antichità 19 (1965), pp. 307–314; on the one from Serdiana-Dolianova, see Antonio
Taramelli, “Dolianova (Cagliari). Tombe di età della decadenza romana con suppellettile
e oreficerie rinvenute in regione Bruncu ‘e s’Olia, nell’agro dell’antica Dolia,” Notizie degli
Scavi di antichità comunicate alla R. Accademia dei Lincei 16 (1919), pp. 169–187. The trea-
sury of a female burial site in Dolianova was particularly valuable and included a gold-disc
fibula and a necklace with glass paste adornments and gold pendants. An earring nearly
identical to the one from Dolianova has recently been reported by Rossana Martorelli at
the Benaki Museum in Athens; see Martorelli, “Documenti di cultura materiale pertinenti
agli scambi commerciali e alle produzioni locali,” in Corrias and Cosentino, Ai confini
dell’Impero, pp. 142–147, and note 161).
15 Martorelli, “Documenti di cultura materiale” p. 142; Salvi, “Cagliari: San Saturnino.”
Figure 16.8 Big breast-shaped earring, made of silver and glass-paste; basket-shaped
earring made of gold and green stone (7th–8th c.).