page_title: Dacian bracelets
section_title: Toteşti bracelet
hierarchical_section_title: Dacian bracelets / Iron Age II (La Tene) / Toteşti bracelet
caption_attribution_description: English: Gold snake-headed no spiralized bracelets ancient Dacia, found at Totesti - Hateg Romania
context_page_description: The Dacian bracelets are bracelets associated with the ancient people known as the Dacians, a distinct branch of the Thracians. These bracelets were used as ornaments, currency, high rank insignia and votive offerings Their ornamentations consist of many elaborate regionally distinct styles. Bracelets of various types were worn by Dacians, but the most characteristic piece of their jewelry was the large multi-spiral bracelets; engraved with palmettes towards the ends and terminating in the shape of an animal head, usually that of a snake.
context_section_description: Various single-spiral bracelets made of solid quadrangular (rhombic) gold bars, whose overlapping ends represent the head of a snake, were found in 1889 at Toteşti in Hunedoara County. The head is geometrically stylized but clearly defined by decorative details. This artifact belongs to the so-called "Classic Dacian" period and described as a "primitive work done by a not skilful hand". It was noted that the snake head is realistically depicted by the representation of the eyes, ears and other elements of the vipera ammodytes that is so commonly found in the area. The same scholars related these gold circlets to the later silver multi-spirals snake protome and palmette bracelets from Vaidei-Romos, Senereuş, Hetur, Marca and Oradea Mare. Other scholars consider that Toteşti snake-headed ornaments should be interpreted on the basis of an abstract contemporary stylistic type, and not as an imitation of reality. In this interpretation Toteşti bracelets are not connected with the snakes from the region of Deva, but they are a tradition that began in Hallstatt times with the "Scythian rings" and continued into the La Tène period.
  In the Scythian tombs of Northern Hungary that are related to the Scythian invasions from around 700 BC, as well as in those of central Romania, spiral-shaped rings known as the "Scythian rings" have been found; with one end forming a fantastic animal, such as a dragon or serpent. These apotropaic creatures, themselves Turano-Siberian varieties of old Mesopotamian monsters, might have provided the model for the Dacian protome bracelet from Toteşti—but neither the Scythian animals nor the Greek decorations appear to have had great success in Dacia, since the native geometric style continued to predominate.
  Analogies to the Totesti bracelets can be found not only to the multi-spiral bracelets, but also in the overlapping-end bracelets whose ends  sometimes terminate with stylized animal heads.
caption: Snake-headed Dacian bracelet from Totesti. Transitional Hallstatt-La Tène period[97]
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