Marcia Earrings: Spiral Hoop, Pearl, Green Stone and a Wire That Moves With You
The Marcia Earrings are handcrafted replicas of an Imperial Roman earring type with a spiral-wrapped brass wire and a triple stone pendant: two genuine freshwater pearls frame a cylindrical aventurine cabochon, linked by golden brass spacers. This type of spiral hoop earring with stone pendant is well attested in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, including by comparable objects in the British Museum. Dimensions: 4 × 2 cm.
Two Pearls, One Cylinder, One Spiral
Roman spiral hoop earring after an Imperial Roman type at a glance
The Marcia Earrings are handcrafted replicas of a Roman earring type from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD: a large open hoop of spiral-wrapped brass carries a three-part pendant made of two genuine freshwater pearls and a cylindrical aventurine cabochon, framed by small brass spacers, in a formal language that spread from the Syrian-Egyptian provinces across the entire Empire.
How an Earring Travels from Syria to Britain
An Antiochene goldsmith is at work in the early 2nd century AD. He winds a thin wire tightly around a core of reed or wood, pulls it off, and bends the resulting spiral strand into an open hoop. The result is not a smooth gold wire, not a cast crescent. It is a springy, lively object: a wire that yields slightly when inserted into the ear and responds to the movement of the wearer. To the hook, the goldsmith attaches the pendant: a freshwater pearl, a cylindrical green stone, a second pearl, and between them little discs of gold. Three materials, one axis, one calm order.
This earring type does not come from Italy. It comes from the eastern provinces of the Empire, from the Syrian-Egyptian world, from workshops working in a Greek craft tradition and feeding their products into the expanding trade network of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Along the trade routes, with soldiers, freedpeople and merchants who kept the Empire in motion, the type travelled westward. The British Museum preserves a gold earring of this kind: spiral wrapping on the wire, a small pearl at the end, carefully made. Find context: unknown. Origin: probably the eastern provinces, 1st–2nd century AD.
What distinguishes this type from other earrings of the Imperial period is not the richness of the material, but the intelligence of its construction. The spiral wrapping is not decoration. It is technique: it makes the wire flexible, distributes pressure evenly across the earlobe, and gives the piece a lightness that cast hoops cannot achieve. The pendant, with its two pearls and cylindrical stone, hangs freely from the hook and moves as the wearer walks, calm and without rattling. This gives it a different character from the crotalia type of the western provinces: less spectacular, but more precise in craftsmanship. Pliny would still have had something to say about it.
Spiral, Cylinder, Pearl
The Marcia Earrings at a glance
The Marcia Earrings are divided into two clearly legible zones. The hoop: a large open ring of tightly wound brass wire, which gives the piece its characteristic texture. Not smooth, not cast, but ribbed and springy, with a long straight insertion wire that passes through the earlobe. The pendant: three elements on a vertical axis, held by small flat brass spacers. At the top, a white freshwater pearl, naturally formed, with slight organic irregularity. In the middle, a green aventurine cabochon in cylindrical form, polished, with the characteristic shimmering effect of aventurine. At the bottom, a second freshwater pearl, mirroring the upper one. The pendant hangs freely from the hook and moves with the wearer.
-
Length: 4 cm, width: 2 cm
-
Material: brass (spiral hoop, insertion wire, spacers), genuine aventurine (green cylindrical stone), genuine freshwater pearls (white, 2 pieces)
-
Closure: insertion wire with hook eye
-
Type / Dating: Spiral hoop earring with three-part stone pendant, 1st/2nd century AD
-
Model / Find context: Typologically based on Imperial Roman spiral hoop earrings, comparable to British Museum examples, eastern provinces, 1st–2nd century AD
Who wears the Marcia Earrings, and for what purpose?
From trade route to earlobe
The Marcia Earrings have an advantage that is rare in reenactment: they tell not only of a wearer, but of a route. The spiral hoop type is not an Italic product. It comes from the East, from Syrian-Egyptian workshops, and in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD appears wherever the trade networks of the Empire moved people, goods and craft traditions. Anyone who wears this earring wears a piece of mobility.
In reenactment, the Marcia Earrings suit a broader spectrum of portrayals than most other pieces in this series. The spiral hoop was not jewellery reserved solely for the upper class. The construction is elaborate, but the material does not have to be gold: bronze versions of this type are known from provincial Roman contexts, documenting its use among the middle social strata. The earrings suit portrayals of prosperous merchants’ wives, Romanised provincial women of the 1st and 2nd centuries, but also women with ties to the eastern Mediterranean, such as freedwomen from Syria or Egypt. The freely swinging pendant gives the piece movement that reads clearly in costume.
In museum education, the Marcia Earrings offer an ideal point of entry into questions of trade routes and cultural transmission: How does a craft principle travel from Antioch to Britain? What does an earring reveal about the permeability of the Empire? These questions can be discussed concretely with the object in hand, even without an original find present in the room.
For history lovers with a passion for jewellery, the spiral wire is the real argument: the texture of the wound wire is both modern and ancient, and the piece is more discreet in daily wear than a large drop earring, yet instantly appears lively through its freely swinging three-pearl pendant.
Our care note: freshwater pearls react sensitively to perfume and chemicals. Aventurine should not be exposed permanently to direct sunlight. Wipe dry after wearing.
What this earring can do, and what it cannot
The Marcia Earrings are the least ostentatious piece in this series. No single museum object stands behind them, no famous wearer, no securely documented find context. Instead: craftsmanship, social flexibility, and a wire that lives as it is worn. Anyone who values that has chosen well.
For reenactments of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD outside the urban Italian upper class, the spiral hoop type is the more honest choice than many more elaborate drop earrings. Merchants’ wives from the eastern Mediterranean, Romanised provincial women, freedwomen with Syrian or Egyptian roots: all of them can be represented here. The type has no social barrier upward and none downward.
Anyone who already has the Faustina Earrings in the jewellery box does not get a duplicate with the Marcia Earrings, but a counterpoint. The same materials, a completely different temperament. Faustina stands still. Marcia moves. Together, they cover more of the Imperial period than either piece could alone.
If, however, your first question when buying reenactment jewellery is the inventory number of the model, then the Faustina Earrings are the better recommendation. The Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen has the answer. For the Marcia Earrings, there is no display case to point to. Only a type that appears everywhere from Antioch to Eboracum. Sometimes that is more than enough.
What Pliny thought about the price of the East
Pliny the Elder was no admirer of eastern luxury goods. Not because he did not know them, but because he knew very well what they cost. In his Naturalis Historia, Book XII, Chapter 84, he calculates:
“Ita quocumque modo computantibus, sestertia centena quinquaginta milia, ut levissime aestimaverim, annis omnibus India et Seres peninsula nostra imperio subtrahit: tanti nobis deliciae et feminae constant.”
“Thus, however one reckons it, India, China and that peninsula drain from our Empire every year at least 150 million sesterces, according to my most modest estimate: that is what our luxuries and our women cost us.”
Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book XII, Chapter 84, around AD 77
Pliny meant this as an accusation. From an archaeological point of view, it is evidence. The pearls in the Marcia Earrings came from the waters of the Red Sea and the Indian coast. The green stone came from mines accessed through Syrian and Egyptian merchants. The spiral hoop came from workshops that carried eastern craft traditions into the western provinces. What Pliny records as a balance sheet of ruin now reads like a map of a world in which an earring from Antioch reached the earlobe in Eboracum.
Spiral, Pearl, East: open questions about the Marcia Earrings
What kind of portrayal do the Marcia Earrings suit?
They suit portrayals of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD with middle to elevated social standing, especially women with links to the eastern Mediterranean: merchants’ wives, Romanised provincial women, freedwomen from Syria or Egypt. The type is socially broader than jewellery forms restricted to the upper class and is therefore suitable for a wider range of portrayals than many other pieces in the series.
Does the pendant move when worn?
Yes. The three-part pendant hangs freely from the hook of the spiral hoop and moves with the wearer while walking. This is not a construction flaw, but intentional: unlike the rigid connector of the Faustina Earrings, movement is part of the character here. No rattling as with the crotalia type, but a calm, visible sway.
Is the spiral hoop archaeologically attested, or is it a modern invention?
The type is attested. The British Museum preserves a Roman gold earring with spiral-wrapped wire and pearl pendant, dated to the 1st–2nd century AD. Spiral-wrapped hoops are also known from provincial Roman contexts, including in bronze. The Marcia Earrings follow this typological principle, but they are not a replica of one single museum object.
Can I combine the Marcia Earrings with other pieces from the series?
They combine well with the Faustina Earrings as a typological contrast, and also with the Octavia Necklace and the Pompeii Pearl Bracelet, since all three pieces share freshwater pearl as a common material. The combination of aventurine and pearl is intentionally repeated and corresponds to the Imperial Roman practice of coordinated materials.
Where did the pearls in Roman earrings actually come from?
Primarily from the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian coast. Pliny the Elder documents the pearl trade and its cost to the Empire in detail in his Naturalis Historia. Freshwater pearls from European rivers were also known, but were regarded as inferior in quality to the eastern imports. The pearls in the Marcia Earrings are genuine freshwater pearls, historically plausible as a provincial variant.
Wire before wire-drawing
Producing the spiral wire in the Marcia Earrings was more elaborate than it looks. Not because the winding itself was difficult, but because Roman craftsmanship did not yet have drawplates. Wire as we know it, evenly drawn through holes in steel plates, is a medieval invention of the 8th to 10th centuries AD. Roman goldsmiths worked differently: they hammered strips of gold thinner and thinner, rolled them into tubes, and smoothed them between two plates into round wire. What was then wound into a spiral hoop was the result of at least four separate manual steps before the first coil was even made. The springy hoop on the ear of a Roman woman of the 2nd century AD was therefore literally handmade, in a sense that no machine today can fully reproduce.
Sources
Title: Naturalis Historia, Book XII
Author: Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus Maior)
Publication: Tusculum edition, Artemis & Winkler, Munich/Zurich
Date: 1999 (original work around AD 77)
Title: Greek and Roman Jewellery
Author: Reynold A. Higgins
Publication: Methuen & Co Ltd, London
Date: 1980
Title: Ancient Gold Jewellery
Author: Barbara Deppert-Lippitz
Publication: Schnell & Steiner, Munich
Date: 1985
Title: Roman Jewellery. A Collection of the National Archaeological Museum Sofia
Author: Lyudmila Ruseva-Slaveykova
Publication: National Archaeological Museum Sofia, Sofia
Date: 1991
Further links
Updated on: 13.04.2026
Forum Traiani ® | We make history tangible!
