Necklace

This gold necklace was sent to Queen Victoria by the British Residents in Mogador (now Essaouira, western Morocco) for her Golden Jubilee in 1887. It was said to be the work of the goldsmiths of Timbuktu, in modern-day Mali. Incorporated is a dinar (coin) bearing the mark of Abu Yaqub Yusuf ibn Tashfin (r.1087–1106), ruler of the Almoravid state of Muslim North Africa and Spain. A second dinar dated 1128 is from the reign of his son, Ali. Although such coins were struck widely by mints in Morocco and Spain, few survive today. The necklace was dispatched by Charles Alfred Payton, who was British Consul at Mogador from 1880–1893. 

Queen Victoria’s jubilee gifts – including this necklace – excited considerable public interest when they were exhibited to the public at St James’s Palace in 1887 and at the Bethnal Green Museum the following year.