The ankh has stayed genuinely legible across thousands of years and multiple religions, which is rare for a symbol this old — originally a hieroglyph representing life in ancient Egyptian art, sometimes shown being pressed against a mortal by a god, granting conception or, more darkly, offering renewed life to the mummified dead. Its distinctive loop-topped cross shape also picked up a second life as a kind of key, one that Coptic Christians later adopted as a sign of life after death, and that Rosicrucian and other Hermetic groups have interpreted as unlocking death's gate rather than merely symbolising it.
This particular ankh is worked in cannetille filigree, fine coiled silver wire built up into an openwork pattern rather than a solid cast form, a labour-intensive technique that gives the whole cross a lightness that belies how much handwork actually went into it. An oval purple fluorite cabochon sits at the centre, suspended on a long oval cable chain — fluorite being a slightly unexpected choice of stone for a piece with this much ancient symbolism behind it, since it's a comparatively modern gemstone favourite rather than one with any historical link to Egyptian jewellery.
