Earring

This silver earring consists of a bent loop attached to a pendant comprised of several hollow spheres soldered together with granulation decorating the seams between them. It was excavated at Tepe Nush-i Jan, an Iron Age hilltop site about 60 km sound of Hamadan in western Iran. Nush-i Jan was occupied in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and its occupants are generally thought to be the Medes, an Iranian people known from Assyrian, Achaemenid and Biblical sources. Though the textual sources portray them as a powerful empire, archaeological evidence for the Medes has yet to sustain this impression. Rather, they seem to have lived in scattered fortified sites in western and central Iran, without any clear capital. Nush-i Jan, one of the best known of these sites, features two temples, a columned hall, and a fort, where the earring was found.

The earring was discovered in a bronze bowl containing 231 pieces of silver, including jewelry, ingots and scraps. At the time coins were not yet in use in Iran, and silver bullion was the primary form of money. The form of the silver did not matter, only the weight, so any silver object, including jewelry, could potentially be used as money. To make a payment, one would weigh out a certain quantity, and to make an exact amount it was sometimes necessary to cut silver into smaller pieces, which is why the hoard includes scraps of metal. It was found below floor level, suggesting that it was hidden for safekeeping. Whether its owner did this as a long-term storage strategy or in response to an emergency is unknown.

Earrings with similar construction have been found at various sites in Iran, including Dinkha Tepe, Sialk, Marlik, Hasanlu and Susa, ranging in date from the early Iron Age to the 4th century B.C. It is therefore difficult to say where it might have been made, but there is no reason to suppose it was not made by the Medes themselves before it was turned over to use as currency.