Damaskos Byzantine 18K Gold Pendant with Blue Cameo

This pendant is built around a natural oval cameo depicting an unnamed woman — a portrait type with fine facial detail that recurs throughout ancient and Byzantine jewelry. The 18K gold mount is ornamented with granulation and small three-leaf Rodakes (rosettes), framing the cameo in a format drawn directly from classical antiquity.

Cameo is a carving technique in which a design is raised in relief from a shell or stone, rather than cut inward as in an intaglio. The tradition has roots in the 2nd millennium BC, when cameos served as luxury objects and personal seals. Here, the carving captures subtle expression and texture — qualities that only emerge through hand-work. The pendant weighs 7.20 grams and is crafted in 18-karat gold. The granulation — tiny fused gold spheres arranged in precise patterns — is applied without solder, using a heat-and-adhesion technique perfected in ancient Greece and revived by Damaskos.

Damaskos is an Athens-based atelier that has practiced traditional Greek goldsmithing techniques for decades, working directly from archaeological and Byzantine sources. This pendant is suited to both daily wear and formal occasions. It arrives as a finished piece that can function as a wearable object of cultural continuity — one made entirely by hand, in the city where these techniques originated.