Second life of damaged things: repairing and modifying jewellery from the Crimea in the Sarmatian period

Abstract

Crimean jewellery from the Sarmatian period (2nd century BC – 4th century AD) includes a small but interesting group of adornments with traces of damage and repair. These artefacts were elements of grave inventories of the people of the Late Scythian and Sarmatian cultures – deposited exclusively in female and child graves. Most of the repaired personal ornaments are earrings and bracelets. Their quality is usually very low. The existence of repairs made jewellery look less attractive and they were limited to modifications allowing their owners to use such adornments again. The general quality of the repairs seems to indicate that they were performed by peoplelacking expert knowledge of jewellery making.