elite consumption

Left This gold armlet, decorated with lion griffins, showcases the skills of Achaemenid goldsmiths. It was found in Tajikistan and can be dated to 500 330 BC. The armlet is 12.3cm in height, while the gaps in the lion griffins would once have held colourful glass, faience, and stone.

World Archaeology
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Power or decadence? Luxury under the Achaemenids, Athenians, and Alexander the Great

We all know that the finer things in life can transmit messages about wealth and status. In the epic struggles between the Persians and Greeks in the 1st millennium BC, though, luxury came to mean so much more, as Jamie Fraser told Matthew Symonds.