AN ETHIOPIAN INDIGO BLUE STRING NECKLACE WITH SILVER GEOMETRIC AMULETS
Ethiopia, Africa, 20th century

The multi-stranded, indigo blue-dyed cotton string strung with eighty consecutive silver pendants, designed as amulet cases made of silver sheets, each of slightly varying size, alternating hemispherical and triangular pendants, each chased on the outer edges with three concentric lines of granulation, with three main circular hanging hoops, the indigo cotton string bearing multiple knots preventing the pendants from sliding.

73.5cm long

214gr.

A very similar specimen with square and triangular amulets, attributed to Eritrea, is published in Wolf-Dieter Seiwert,Jewellery from the Orient: Treasures from the Bir Collection, 2009, p. 108, cat. no. 246. For another example attributed to Ethiopia: Girma Fisseha, Äthiopien - Kunst und Geschichte eines Landes, 1988. p. 59.