Ethiopian Coptic Cross Amulet

Eight-petaled flower is scratched inside a ring at the heart of this stout piece.

This coptic cross amulet is Ethiopian Orthodox, from Ethiopia, East Africa, and dates to the 19th or early 20th century. It is coin silver & fine silver. Silver crosses of this kind were often made by hand-working or casting metal, sometimes from melted coins, which gave smiths a familiar and portable source of silver. Short, broad arms with rounded corners frame a lightly engraved floral rosette inside an oval. The face is smooth and softly scuffed, with a flat square block below a dome-like loop. It is 1 inches long and 1.5 high.

Small garden, large ambitions.