Delos Palm Necklace

In the heart of the Cyclades lies Delos, a small island that once stood at the centre of a remarkably connected Aegean world.

Ships, merchants and travellers passed through its harbours, bringing people and goods from across the Mediterranean. Among the images associated with the island was the palm tree — an elegant motif that appeared in the visual culture of Delos and upon its ancient coinage.

Bronze coins struck by the Delians during the Hellenistic period placed the palm prominently within their designs, its slender trunk rising into a crown of spreading fronds. Surviving coins preserve this distinctive image more than two thousand years later.

The palm also appears elsewhere in Greek art connected with Delos, demonstrating how recognisable the image became within the island's ancient visual tradition.

Inspired by this imagery, the Delos Palm Necklace transforms the ancient palm into a golden relief — its trunk and delicate fronds rising from the surface of an irregular coin-inspired pendant made to carry a fragment of the ancient Aegean into the present.