The Aravissos Hoard is an assortment of six Neolithic gold artifacts from around 4,500 to 3,200 BC, including two ring-shaped pendants, two band-shaped ellipsoidal sheets, one disc-shaped sheet, and one ring, found accidentally in the area of Aravissos, near Pella, an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece.
The Aravissos Hoard is thought to have originated from a cemetery, which is yet to be discovered, and they belong to known types from other sites in the Aegean, the Balkans, and the Black Sea.
The ring-shaped pendants from wrought sheets are believed to be representations of the human body, and have been interpreted as religious symbols. Similar artifacts made from other materials, such as silver, stone, marble, or clay, have been discovered in lots of sites throughout Greece. A rock carving from the site of Plaka on the island of Andros depicts figures with ring-shaped pendants tied around their wrists.
The gold artifacts from Aravissos are significant not only for their precious material but also because they evidence the capability of Neolithic people to acquire personal prestige items, which often went with their owners to the afterlife. This indicates the community’s care for the dead, and the belief in the afterlife, as part of a wider set of communal traditions practiced in Neolithic society.
The Gold ‘Ring Idol’ of Aravissos and Other Treasures
The first productions of ring idols, or ring-shaped pendants in the Aegean and the Balkans were made of stone, but those from the end of the Neolithic, between the fifth and fourth millennia, were mostly of gold, copper, and silver.
These objects have a characteristic morphology, with a concave ring and a pierced extension. In the first deposits of metallic objects found in Aegean Neolithic layers, the discovery of ring idols is recurrent. Some appear to have been hammered, others possibly cast. This can be observed by traces on their surface.
Gold Objects in Neolithic Greece
Only a few gold objects dated from the late fifth to mid-fourth millennium BC, and likely associated with the Varna culture of northeastern Bulgaria, have been found in adjacent areas like Greece and the Aegean Sea.
The Aravissos Hoard are among them, as well as one gold ring found at Sitagroi, Macedonia, one perforated gold disc found at Ftelia (Mykonos), one perforated band in the Zas cave (Naxos), and one bead at Strofilas (Andros).
The Making of Gold
The presence of gold flakes and of quartz and feldspar inclusions identified in early Bulgarian and Greek gold objects seems to show that, even if during a short time, placer gold was ‘unskilfully’ worked at the beginning of its use by processing gold nuggets.
However, the aesthetic repertoire accessible is quite limited when simply cold-hammering native gold into foils and cutting these into a desired shape for decoration.
Objects obtained this way would quickly have become aesthetically unsatisfactory.
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