Fashion And Jewelry 427
S. Antonio Abate in Orosei. Analogous objects in glass, crystal, coral, or shell
with a silver pivot at their centers belong to the same type (Fig. 16.9). Buttons
of these kinds have also been documented in the southern part of the island,
in tombs near the church of S. Giuliano a Selargius.22
Confirming the prevalence of this fashion, the same buttons have been
found in coeval contexts throughout Italy, but also in the village of Rougiers
in southern France, from the late thirteenth century,23 in Romania,24 and in a
sixteenth-century Spanish settlement in California.25 The latter confirms the
long chronological duration of this type, attested also in Sardinia, and certain-
ly indebted to its simple shape. The characteristics of late medieval spherical
22 Paolo Benito Serra, “Saggi di scavo archeologico: relazione preliminare (1984–86),”
in Paolo Benito Serra, Roberto Coroneo, and Renata Serra, San Giuliano di Selargius
(Cagliari), Quaderni della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Cagliari e Oristano 6 (1989),
pp. 227–235, tav. IV.
23 Gabrielle Demiens d’Archimbaud, Fouilles de Rougiers (Paris, 1980), pp. 16–20, pl. 478.
24 E. Neamtu, “Le trèsor d’objets de parure et de monnais dècouvert à Sihleanu (Comm.
Scortaru Nou, dep. Braila),” Dacia 25 (1980), pp. 141–353.
25 Joseph Judge, “Exploring our Forgotten Century,” National Geographic 173:3 (1988),
pp. 331–363.
Figure 16.9 Buttons in silver, coral, or shell (14th–15th c.).