You have probably read of our heart jewelry articles in the past. Today we will take a step backward and write a more “generic” on the history of jewelry in general. Jewelry as an art form has been around for thousands of years, and different cultures have used it in different ways. As we examine these pieces of jewelry we will gain insight into how these ancient cultures actually worked.
The homo sapiens that lived in Africa provide us with the first sign of a culture using jewelry. They have found snail shell beads at Blombos Cave (situated in the side of a limestone cliff in South Africa) that date back to over 75,000 years ago. If we go to the other side of Africa, at Enkapune Ya Moto in Kenya, they have found beads made from ostrich egg shells that date back to over 40,000 years ago.
Egypt is known for the Great Pyramids and the Ancient Sphinx, but it has created some remarkable jewelry as well. In fact, we see the first signs of established jewelry making starting to appear here around 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. The Egyptians used many of the materials that we use to make jewelry today, such as gemstones, but glass was their preferred medium. With glass they could color it to satisfy their various tastes and needs. In fact, for every gemstone that they could find in nature, they were able to make a glass replicate of it. As time passed on, other cultures, such as the Ancient Phoenicians, used Egyptian jewelry as a template for their own unique designs.
We all love colored jewelry for it’s beauty, but to the Ancient Egyptians it meant different things. Take for example the color red. The necklace of Isis that was to be placed on the neck of a mummy needed to be red in color. It was thought that this color would satisfy Isis’s need for blood. On the other side of the coin, the color green was used to symbolize growth in crops and fertility. The Ancient Egyptians made their jewelry in large workshops that were often attached to their palaces and temples.
Around 4000 years ago, in the cities of Sumer and Akkad in Ancient Mesopotamia, jewelry development and production started to spring up. This jewelry was often made from metal leaf. It was often set in a large number of brightly-colored stones (such as lapis, jasper, carnelian, and agate). Various shapes, such as grapes, leafs, spirals and cones were also incorporated into their various designs. The Ancient Mesopotamians were also masters in the area of record keeping, and they have found in various archaeological sites huge archives of detailed records relating to not only the creation, but the trading, of jewelry.
We hope you have enjoyed this little departure from our regular heart jewelry articles. It’s very interesting to see how this art form of jewelry making has developed over the years.
Learn more about The History of Jewelry. Stop by Betsy Johnson’s site where you can find out all about Beautiful Heart Jewelry and what it can do for you.
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