A necklace of fifty-five multi-colored stone beads alternating with 20k gold cylinder beads. Twenty-seven of the stone beads are long barrel-shaped beads and twenty-eight ate small spherical agate beads. Eighteen of the barrel-shaped beads are agate, seven are carnelian and four are lapis lazuli. The barrel-shaped beads graduate in size towards the back of the necklace. The idea of alternating gold beads with an equal number of round and barrel-shaped beads made of a variety of colored stones comes from our appreciation of the jewelry of Susa in the Achaemenid Period (4th century B.C.). Susa (biblical Shushan) lay at the edge of the Iranian plateau, not far from the great cities of Mesopotamia. It absorbed both Akkadian and Babylonian influences through booty from conquests in Mesopotamia. Treasures from the royal city of Susa can be viewed in the Louvre.