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Jewellery
History of Jewellery and Gemstones
Jewellery history goes back many centuries, evolving from shells, animal teeth, and other objects used as adornment in prehistoric times. Jewellery making started in Egypt, Italy, China and South and Central America approximately 5000 years ago. Over the centuries it came to be a sign of social or religious rank. In Renaissance Italy, jewellery making reached the status of a fine art with many Italian sculptors training as goldsmiths. From the 17th century the decorative function of jewellery again came to the fore, overshadowing its symbolic significance. By 1930, industrialization in New York brought jewellery within the reach of the middle class by creating mass production processes.
> Jewellery through the Ages JEWELLERY AND GEMS...
...Men, women, and children in every part of the world wear some sort of jewellery either as ornament or for "magic."
Some pieces, made of gems and precious metals, are almost priceless. Much, however, is only costume jewellery fashioned from imitation gems and the cheaper metals and manufactured in large quantities.
Among primitive peoples, as in Africa and on the Pacific Islands, jewellery is largely oddments of wood, bones, shells, or animal hair; yet many of the designs are graceful. For some tribes "jewellery" is only a wooden lip plug.
As far back as the Old Stone Age, people made jewellery. In their cave dwellings they fashioned amulets and necklaces of teeth and animal bones to ward off evil spirits.
By Babylonian times, people had learned to work with gold, and jewellery making had become a craft. The Sumerian jewellers had their workshops within the temple grounds.
Jewellers in ancient Egypt developed jewellery enamels, or cloisonné, and produced magnificent gold and silver pieces. The Etruscans have never been equaled for their work in granulation fusing tiny pellets of gold onto a metal surface to form a raised design.
The ancient Greeks worked chiefly in enamel and filigree gold or silver wire shaped into lace like open-work. Jewellers of the Roman Empire added gems to gold and silver pieces. Enameling and heavy design characterized the elaborate Byzantine jewellery. In ancient Hebrew times, bracelets were the insignia of kings. The Bible frequently mentions jewellery.
The design for the breast piece of Aaron, the high priest, for example, appears in Exod. xxviii, 15, and was to have 12 gems sardius (ruby), topaz, carbuncle, emerald, sapphire, diamond, jacinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper, all set in gold filigree. Medieval nobles delighted in jewelled religious objects, and in robes and gloves sewn thick with gems. In the brilliant, florid days of the
Renaissance, jewellery designs were made by such great artists as Durer in Germany and Botticelli, Ghiberti, and Cellini in Italy. Except in Japan, peoples of the Orient have long loved jewellery and worn a great deal of it. In the bazaars of India today artisans still make pieces from designs that may be 2,000 years old.
The Chinese too display great skill and artistry, especially in the classical wedding head-dresses. Chinese so prize jade that many carry a piece of it in their pocket to stroke. Instead of the brilliant green jade, they prefer more rare colours, such as white mottled with grass green or red spots and green flecked with gold.
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