In the Hellenistic period, the Greek world was flooded with gold. Greece itself had few sources of gold, and those had been depleted by the late Classical period. Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire, which included Egypt, made vast resources of gold available for the first time. The various royal courts of Alexander's successors, including the Ptolemies in Egypt, comprised a wealthy clientele with a taste for luxury, which, in combination with this new abundance of gold, led to an immense outpouring of gold jewelry.
This group of gold jewelry may have belonged to an important and wealthy woman in Ptolemaic Egypt. It consists of eleven pieces: a diadem, a hairnet, two pairs of hoop earrings, a pair of pendant earrings, two sets of bracelets, two rings, a partial necklace, and a set of loose beads possibly representing a second necklace.
Hellenistic jewelry made extensive use of enamel and colored stones, especially favoring garnets. Earlier Classical jewelry, in contrast, only rarely used gems, and its decorative effects depended on the sculptural form of the gold and surface elaboration with filigree and granulation.
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