Featured Curious silver pendant

Today has been a learning day!. Can you imagine trying to nonchalantly stroll out of the catacombs with someone's tibia stuffed down your coat

 

'ever seen the pockets on the coat of the Marx Brother Harpo...?

 

Still fuzzy to my old eyes (not helped by the scratched glass), but looks to me more like a piece of wood than bone. Would think that if a religious relic, would have some reference to its supposed source, whether by an engraving, an image or symbol, or just the inclusion of a slip of paper under the glass. As already suggested, pieces of the 'true cross' were popular, if totally unlikely, souvenirs, but similar charms/pendants were also produced with other bits, perhaps a piece of a sunken ship, or a ruin, or something personal to the owner - even bits of the Transatlantic cable were used, with numerous souvenirs produced from the late 1850s into the '60s, similar to the 1866 spinner fob charm below:



https://www.rubylane.com/item/1219278-PSR0313503/Victorian-Transatlantic-Cable-Pocket-Watch-Fob


Coincidentally, while doing some research yesterday, ran across this goldstone brooch with a somewhat similar setting:


https://www.etsy.com/listing/614412067/victorian-c1880-silver-and-goldstone?ref=cart

 

We once knew socially a man who regularly went looking for Noah's Ark. This is not a joke. Back in the 1980s, he with a group of people regularly went on trips to the Ararat Mountain in Turkey, paid for guides, gear, tents, provisions, etc. to make the dangerous climb up the sides of the mountain.

The locals there live on the proceeds from these Ark-chaser expeditions. The participants all have "evidence" of the Ark being there "somewhere", maps, photos, etc.

The fact that the only huge protrusion thought to possibly represent the Biblical vessel ever recorded on a photograph is on the Russian side of Ararat they totally ignore.

The American military pilot who took the picture from his plane was actually in a forbidden zone [Russian] so lied and said the photo was taken from the Turkish side of Ararat. Anyone familiar with how the peaks there look sees immediately that it was the Russian side.

In any case, the dozen or so fellows (no women allowed!) enjoy getting away from their big mostly Southwestern families every two-three years or so to "go looking for the Ark". They do not expect to ever find it. It wouldn't be a true quest then, would it.

And returning to WOOD as in a memento: The Turkish locals do a brisk business selling amulets and little keepsake boxes with pieces of the Ark.

Having once been shown a small splinter in a tiny box, I recall it was very dark, charred, like it had been in a fire. I asked about that and was informed that "the wood in the Ark was coated with bitumen and tar" [to make it waterproof] according to the Bible. That explained why it was of a black color.

And how did the locals get hold of these wood splinters if the actual Ark has yet to be found? They claim that they always find pieces of the Ark along the mountain sides where pieces chafed down from the ship over the thousands of years since it came to rest on Ararat.

So much for today's history lesson in what else can be called a reliquary memento. Thank you all for your enthusiastic attention!

 

It's definitely an odd bit. Most of those reliquary pieces were labeled, so you know whose bone it was supposed to be. (and I am seeing bone here) The fabric in the back would have been red originally; they always were. I've never quite "gotten" those relic pendants, but as a Protestant I wouldn't.

 

Butterfly wing jewellery was almost always from Brazil. The main importer and setter into silver here was Thomas Mott. I've a fair bit of it.

The butterflies are morpho.

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/25753-english-butterfly-wing-jewellery

 

Jal is saying that he thinks it most likely is a piece of wood, if I understand correctly; but it is hard to tell from the photo.

 

Very nice. I agree that it is most likely a religious pendant/charm. Probably is a bit of bone purportedly from one of the saints. Might be also a piece of the true cross? I'm sure this fraud is still practiced today. I don't feel that this fraud hurts anyone and may be beneficial to many. Belief is a powerful thing.......Oh, and I would get the glass polished a bit if possible.

 

Thanks for all the comments, even though I have not gotten very solid information about this piece, I have learned a lot with your stories and comments. I think I will start using this piece as a pendant to be lucky!!!

 

@Jal Or on a key chain - never misplace your keys again...

 

is it a hair broach hair in center and rope around twisted

 

Hum... Not a brooch, it is described and shows as a pendant!
For the hair... I see none, but a faded red fabric
Welcome on board, cecelia!