Chrysomallus

The year...the mid 1800's. The place...Newark, New Jersey. Beasts make their appearance on the forefront, capturing the imagination of the American jewelry loving public. An item is created in a 19th century chase to classical antiquity. It is copied by many.

The year...the age of the Greek Gods. The place...ancient Greece. The problem...famine pervades the land. It's the old story of lies and deception. A King gets tired of his wife and trades her in for a new model. Wife number two's name is Ino. In the household live two children. Phrixus...boy child of the first wife. And a second son. A plan is hatched to kill child number one so number two can become king.

Influences of Italian model-makers using a neo-antique motif urge such famous jewelers as Tiffany& Co. and the Riker Brothers of Newark to produce their own versions of classical jewelry. Tiffany produces a bracelet with a double ram's head. The Riker brothers produce a brooch in the form of a ram's head which presently resides in the Newark Museum.

Ino...in her plot to ensure her son becomes king, somehow gets hold of seed corn and parches it before the men go out to sow. Of course...the parched corn produces no crop. The people will go hungry. Someone must pay. Someone is to blame. Ino bribes an oracle...and when the king sends a messenger to find out who is responsible for the imminent famine threatening the land...the answer comes back...it is Phrixus, the son of his first wife. There is only one fitting punishment. Death. Ino's second son, it would appear, is guaranteed kingdom.

The ram's head jewelry produced by 19th century jewelers evokes controversy. Is it an allusion to classical antiquity...or is it an allusion to the zodiac? The ram's head produced by the Rikers add to the discussions. The ram is the symbol for Aries...which represents the month of March. Riker's ram has a ruby eye. Ruby is the March birthstone. The Rikers have chosen well. They've covered more than one base. Antiquity?...Zodiac? Which?

Phrixus is ordered to be sacrificed. However...when on the alter... when at the point of death...a wondrous ram named Chrysomallus... sent by Hermes...a ram in fact with a golden fleece...snatches Phrixus up and carries him off to safety to the island of Colchis, where he--Chrysomalus--is later sacrificed by Phrixus to Zeus. The moral as I see it here: No good deed ever goes unpunished. By the way...this is the same golden fleece Jason and his Argonauts went a questing for not much later.

And so lads and lassies...as we end up back in the 19th century...and then shoot forward to just a scant few seconds...as is measured from the beginnings of creation...before the start of a new millennia... I bring you all a blast from the past...a picture of the ram's head created in Newark, New Jersey in the mid 1800's...a ram's head with a ruby eye. You decide. Antiquity...or Zodiac. To see it...go to my page...scroll down the table menu...to Tidbit Graphics...and click on Ram.

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