Three items show that at least some of the participants in the battle or battles from which the hoard came were Christian. Two are crosses of marvellous workmanship, made of thin sheets of Byzantine gold and Indian garnets, both folded as if to compress them.

university. The museum had a definitive moment during the French Revolution, when the revolutionaries discovered an alternative to vandalizing the images and icons of the old regime: neutralizing them by placing them in the Louvre, which was transformed from a palace into a museum.

Excavations of Swedish jewellers’ workshops have revealed caches of garnets, imported as raw material from India and Sri Lanka. Elephant ivory perhaps travelled along a similar path, either through the Persian Gulf and then overland on the caravan routes or via the Red Sea to the Mediterranean ports. Roman jewellery and glass, as well as Byzantine