Trajan's Column Necklace

In the heart of Rome stands one of the ancient world’s most extraordinary records of military life.

Trajan’s Column was dedicated in AD 113, its towering marble shaft commemorating Emperor Trajan’s campaigns against the Dacians beyond the Danube.

But its story is not written in words.

It is carved in stone.

A continuous sculpted frieze winds around the Column in a great spiral, unfolding scene after scene as it climbs towards the summit.

Across its surface Roman soldiers march through unfamiliar landscapes, build camps and fortifications, cross rivers, transport supplies and confront their enemies. Military standards rise above formations of troops while armour, weapons, horses, boats and buildings fill the crowded scenes.

The result is far more than an image of battle.

It offers an extraordinary Roman vision of the experience of campaigning — the organisation, movement, engineering and labour required to sustain an army far from Rome.

Nearly two thousand years later, these tiny carved figures still march around the Column.

Created exclusively for the British Museum’s Legion: life in the Roman army exhibition, the Trajan’s Column Necklace takes the visual language of this monumental Roman narrative and reduces it to the scale of a jewel.

Its irregular rectangular form resembles a fragment of carved stone, while the raised figures across its surface evoke the densely populated reliefs that spiral around the ancient monument.

A story once carved across metres of marble becomes something small enough to carry.

A fragment of Rome’s greatest military story, reimagined in gold.