Great pin to go on a wool jacket, coat or on a scarf.

Comes in a red velvet gift box (see picture below).

The pin is properly stamped for fine silver. ***Also stamped with my personal artist's stamp -- a stylized lily.

Many jewelry designers are making Celtic jewelry but I don't know of anyone besides myself making Scythian jewelry.

This pin is based on the famous gold cat artifact in the Hermitage museum in Russia. The original, a shield decoration, was made by the Eastern Scythians (the Sakas). It was found in a burial mound (a kurgan) in the Altai area of Central Asia on the border of Russia and China and dates from around 700 to 600 B.C. . The original is housed in the Hermitage museum in Russia. This pin is not an identical reproduction. If you would like to see a picture of the original please email me.

Many people do not realize that many of the Scythians were ancestors of the Europeans. In fact, recent research is showing that the Celtic, Scythian and Germanic tribes were not as clearly differentiated from each other as has long been thought. If you have Celtic, Anglo-Saxon or Viking in your geneology, it is possible that you may consider yourself to be a Scythian descendant.

Some non-conventional scholars also connect many of the Scythian and Celtic tribes with the ten lost tribes of Israel. Recent scholarship shows that there was plenty of room in Central Asia for tribes of people to disappear into and then pop up elsewhere in history under different names. In fact, the area in history of Central Asia is so vast and complex that in the time between 721 BC (when the Israelites disappeared) and the Dark Ages of Europe (when "barbarians" moved in and settled) almost ANYTHING could have happened.

Scythian art is an amazing art. Nobody, not even the Egyptians had as much gold as they did or used animals in their art in such as entertaining fashion. Often animal decoration was used to fill in every bare space on an item. Clothing was often decorated with small plaques of gold embossed with animal shapes. The animals were usually depicted in a lively pose and often have a cartoon like quality to them. This is very unusual in ancient art where the objective was usually to appear imposing or threatening.

Keep your eyes open on the Internet and in the news for new Scythian discoveries. More Scythian finds are being dug up every year and will become more well-known to the public.

More close-ups of opals and ruby:

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