Gold Turtle Necklace from the Kingdom of Colchis,

(modern-day Georgia/South Caucasus), c. 450 BCE,

Length: Approximately 33 cm (13 inches).

Composition: It consists of 31 gold pendants (one large central turtle and 30 smaller turtles).

This sculpture was unearthed from the central terrace at Vani, which is an archaeological site located in what is now western Georgia (the country, not the state). It was created roughly 2,800 years ago, when Vani served as the religious, cultural, and administrative center for the ancient Kingdom of Colchis.

Above: the full-sized sculpture

The figure was originally designed with three heads on each end of its body, but only two of the original heads remain. Each head is depicted with a crown and an assortment of zoomorphic features.

Several other sculptures with a similar design have also been unearthed at Vani, at the nearby site of Nokalakevi, and at other Colchian sites throughout the region.

Above: a remarkably similar sculpture that was also discovered at Vani

As this article explains:

Terracotta figurines of various animals occur at Vani, but particularly interesting are four-footed figures with multiple heads on opposite ends. The protomes of two-headed and three-headed fantastical creatures with characteristic post-like legs apparently belong to figures of this type.

Above: a two-headed protome from the same site

This design also appears in some Greek sculptures from the same period:

Such figures, also common in the Greek world, have been found in 8th-7th century BCE contexts at Olympia, Delphi, Athens, Crete, Rhodes, Samos, and elsewhere. In Italy, these figures frequently appear in 7th-6th century contexts. Although at present a firm decision on which culture influenced the Vani figures (four-footed with two heads on opposite ends) is difficult to discern, the earlier emergence and wide distribution of such representations in the Greek world suggest a link with Hellenic culture.

Perhaps these new elements in Colchian culture c.800-650 BCE resulted from Greek contacts (still intermittent) in the precolonial era, which were reflected in the great popularity of stories of the Argonauts in the 8th-7th centuries and in the first geographical and ethno-political reports of Colchis. Regular Greek contacts began only c.550 BCE, after the establishment of Greek settlements on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

Above: another two-headed protome from Vani

Sources & More Info:

The Georgian National Museum: Figurine of a Fantastical Beast

Journal of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies: Vani: an Ancient City of Colchis (PDF)

:3c for my personal notes but thought i would still share

very longgg passage excerpt below cut from Lorgar: Bearer of the Word containing more thorough details about this world's timekeeping

Sharing this trailer from a play I watched years ago: "Jason and the golden fleece"

This was also my inspiration for drawing Medea with curled horns:

More pictures:

Hear me out: Erebus, but he stopped shaving his entire head.

Curly Erebus.

Wife of Phrixus, Chalciope, daughter of Aeetes, sister of Medea

She's staring at Phrixus, mesmerised, while he is yapping about random stuff🥰.

The only canonical thing is attested in the aspect of Chalciope is a generalistic characteristic of the race of Helios, that is:

Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4. 727-29:

For all those of the race of Helios were plain to discern, since by the far flashing of their eyes they shot in front of them a gleam as of gold.

The earring is an inspiration of these earrings found in Colchis from the 5th century BC. I found in this post and here a zoom:

Of course, it couldn't be any other way: Chalciope had to have a reference to her husband Phrixus. The earrings represent the Chrysomallos with Phrixus and Helle on its back. The acorns, apart from referring to the original jewel, refer to the oak tree on which the golden fleece was hung, and also refer to the fact that Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Zeus of the fugitives (Zeus Phyxos), and Zeus is associated with oak trees.

4. 123:

And they two by the pathway came to the sacred grove, seeking the huge oak tree on which was hung the fleece, like to a cloud that blushes red with the fiery beams of the rising sun. 

2. 1146:

The ram, at its own prompting, he then sacrificed to Zeus, son of Cronos, above all, the god of fugitives.

Fun fact: