Just a broken earring?

I thought the construction was interesting - that textile pad and all those coiled bits. There's a short length of fine chain attached to the top. Do you think it started as an earring? Do you think it's old? The only thing I ever had with similar coil-y bits was a traveling reliquary, probably Swiss and early 19th C.

 

This looks like a crafted piece made from bits and bobs of other things.

 

Maybe so... here are the inexpensive little eyelets, I think... the front looks so much more well-done to me. Maybe somebody took a nice old earring and prettied up the back, to use as a decorative something-or-other?

 

Whoever made it had nimble fingers.

 

Or at least (surgical) needle-nose tweezers.