Breast star with stars between rays.
Silver, gilt, enamel.
Size 81 mm.
Weight 56 g.
French silver hallmark "boar's head", maker's plaque "Fayolle-Pouteau".
Allegedly this breast star once belong to Jean-Jacques de Morgan who was awarded with 1st class order of Lion and Sun in 1904.
Jean-Jacques de Morgan (3 June 1857, Huisseau-sur-Cosson, Loir-et-Cher – 14 June 1924) was a French mining engineer, geologist, and archaeologist. He excavated in Memphis and Dashur, providing many drawings of many Egyptian pyramids. He also worked at Stonehenge, and Persepolis, and many other sites.
He also went to Russian Armenia, as manager of a copper mine at Akhtala. "The Caucasus is of special interest in the study of the origins of metals; it is the easternmost point from which prehistoric remains are known; older than Europe and Greece, it still retains the traces of those civilizations that were the cradle of our own."
In 1887-89 he unearthed 576 graves around Alaverdi and Akhatala, near the Tiflis-Alexandropol railway line.
De Morgan travelled to Susiana as he attempted to retrace the routes of the Assyrian campaigns in Elam. He arrived in Susa, former capital of Elam, which had been explored six years previously by an expedition led by Marcel Dieulafoy. As he explored the ruins outside the small village of Shush, his curiosity was aroused by the high mound known as "the Citadel", at the foot of which he recovered some flints and old potsherds.
These finds led him to reopen excavations at the site. In Tehran he confided his plans to the French minister, René de Balloy, who was eager to obtain a monopoly for France of archaeological research in Persia. It took time, however, before these efforts, under de Morgan's guidance, were successful. In 1892 de Morgan noted that there were petroleum seepages in Iran which he believed could be commercially profitable.[9] In the meantime he published his Mission scientifique en Perse, with four volumes of geological studies; two volumes of archaeological studies on tombs and other monuments that were still seen; one volume dedicated to Kurdish dialects and the languages of northern Persia; one volume of Mandaean texts; and two volumes of geographical studies.
The excavations at Susa were headed by Jacques de Morgan in 1897 and carried on by others until the outbreak of World War I. Among their many discoveries are eight perforated plaques, three of them whole or nearly whole, and the rest fragmentary.
The most important find, however, was the famous Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, brought to Susa as war booty by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte.