Sakta Brooch
The sakta, the ancient Baltic breast brooch of bronze, silver or silver-gilt, fastened the folk costume — above all the bride's — at throat or chest, in one or several at once. Archaeological finds date the fibula type back roughly two millennia, and the later 'bubble' saktas, with hemispherical bosses set with glass studs, were trusted as a woman's savings, pinned to her dress as a portable store of value. A Latvian folk song says the goddess Laima makes fibulae for a girl, 'immersing them in silver', and the brooch was given at the coming-of-age ceremonies of girls and kept as an heirloom of