Archeologists found this earring in a mound in Vysochina village of Rostov Region in 1978.

This ancient piece of jewelry is made of gold leaf but inside it is hollow. The earring is decorated with grain — a decor of small balls — and a filigree — a thin twisted wire. Two parts of the earring are interconnected by an unorthodox coiled element. Such decor can be very rarely observed in the jewelry of the Northern Black Sea region: there are wire rings soldered edge-to-edge to form a circle.

The earring’s core consists of two cones with brims. The soldering joints are decorated with grain: clusters of small balls made of precious metal. The lower part of the earring is also decorated with grain. The suspension loop with a wire split ring inserted therein is soldered on top.

The burial site of a woman, in which this ancient piece of jewelry was found had been looted. However, the very design of the burial chamber and other finds of archaeologists are indicative of her high social status. This conclusion can be supported by the following facts: the mound contained only one burial chamber, there was a bronze cast caldron found in the embankment, the chamber itself was large — 2.4 × 2.3 meters. The more so, a wooden deck, on which the woman body was allegedly deposited, features a multitude of objects made of precious metals. In addition to the earring, the burial chamber contained 42 golden studs that were meant for sewing onto the clothing and a perfume bottle made of bone with a golden cap.

Where the gold earring was rather clumsily built, the gold studs are exquisite. They are very small: each of them is 2.2 millimeters high and 5.6 millimeters in diameter. In addition, the studs’ shape is very complicated: they are hemispherical with a tiny area ringed by a low lip with some smallest grains soldered thereon. The studs were attached to the clothing by thin wire loops. Three studs lost their loops in ancient times and have holes punched for fixing purposes instead. It means that the golden items saw a lot of use. Evidently, the precious studs were used for embroidering the buried person’s clothes, which she wore while alive.