Classical illustrations of people (and divinities) wearing figured elements and amulets around their necks and limbs are valuable evidence for figured pendant usage outside the grave context. Figure 36 Dancing Figure or Head of Satyr, Etruscan or Italic, early 5th century B.C. Amber, legacy dimension: 7.5 x 4.7 cm (215⁄16 x 17⁄8 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Miss C. Wissmann, 02.253. Photograph © 2011, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The sometimes disfiguring large drilled holes in the faces Figure 37 Winged Female Head in Profile, Etruscan, 525-480 B.C. Amber, H: 7.9 cm (31⁄8 in.), W: 4.9 cm (19⁄10 in.), D: 2.5 cm (1 in.). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty deserve special comment. Why and when were they Museum, 76.AO.85.2. Gift of Gordon McLendon. See cat. no. 15. bored? Raw amber pieces are sometimes found with large round holes in their center, the result of resin forming Paintings or sculptures of figures wearing a string with a around a branch or twig (now disintegrated). If a piece of single amulet or a group of them (as opposed to necklaces amber was purposely perforated before it was made into designed with repeating elements) are uncommon in an object, the act might have occurred anywhere between Archaic and Classical art from Italy, but the depictions the Baltic and Italy, and at any time, for it is likely that that do survive depict bullae-wearing men, women, and amber moved south in both worked and unworked form children, horses, and even ravens. Human figures of both from earliest times. On a practical level, the holes may sexes wear them around the neck and on the upper arms. have been drilled into the amber to better protect it when The single ornaments include gorgon masks and the it was suspended from a pin, or, once the piece was cored, heads of animals, such as fawns, lions, and rams. A it would have been suitable for wearing on a pin. The number of terracottas of seated goddesses from Greek smoothed prominent surfaces of the Getty pendant sanctuaries in Magna Graecia, for example, wear strings Winged Female Head in Profile (figure 37), the multiple of figured elements, among them bulls’ heads.177 On through-bores, the abrasion troughs in the suspension Greek vases, on Cypriot terracotta sculptures of temple perforations at the top, and the central hole all indicate boys, and on Laconian bronze images of partly clothed that this pendant must have been used over a period of young women are seen cross-torso carriers bearing time before it was finally interred in a grave.176 How and various kinds of amulets: crescents, boar tusks, circlets, by whom amber pendants were used during life is a and other shapes. Women wearing a single lotus-blossom subject for speculation. Pliny’s account is one useful pendant are represented in terracottas, bronzes, and source of information, and the few surviving Archaic and Amber Medicine, Amber Amulets 53