Aegina Tortoise Earrings

Long before coins routinely carried the portraits of kings and emperors, the ancient Greek island of Aegina became associated with one of the most distinctive images in Greek coinage: the tortoise.

Aegina occupied an important position within the waters of the Saronic Gulf. Its connections with maritime exchange helped its silver coinage travel far beyond the island itself, carrying the tortoise motif into ports and markets across the ancient Mediterranean.

The animal was rendered boldly across the small surface of the coin, its shell divided into geometric sections and its limbs extending towards the irregular edge of the silver flan.

These coins were practical objects of exchange, but their imagery also created an unmistakable visual identity.

The Aegina Tortoise Earrings recreate that ancient design in gold.

Each pendant retains the uneven circular outline and textured surface associated with an ancient struck coin, while the tortoise remains at the centre of the design just as it did on Aeginetan silver more than two thousand years ago.

From an island surrounded by the Mediterranean to a miniature jewel worn today, the tortoise survives as one of the most memorable symbols of ancient Greek coinage.

An ancient symbol of an island shaped by the sea.