Sub heading – Brief About History of jewelry
The best evidence indicates that jewelry has been in existence for several thousands of years and is an integral part of anthropology, art and fine craftsmanship. Here is an overview of key periods in jewelry history:
This section showcases artifacts that were created between 40000 BCE and 3000 BCE, but has also listed here for easier location of information by the reader.
Materials: Primitive Jewelry was created by using bones, shells, feathers, stones and seeds and so on.
Purpose: Used as protecting talismans, indicators of status, and for ornaments or as religious trinkets. Many inexpensive pendants, bangles, and bands were in fashion.
Ancient Egypt (3000–500 BCE)
Materials: Some of the favored materials used were gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise and carnelian. Gold, which was available in Egypt a lot, held a lot of value.
Design: While there were not many differences in the Egyptian jewelries, the designs made were usually designs with the gods, scarab, the ‘Eye of Horus’ and the ankh. Jewelry played a great role as a symbol of religion and hierarchy system.
Significance: Men and women used to wear jewels. Zuleheta was worn on cultural activities such as burials, and fine pieces put on the corpse to be buried with in the graves.
Early Civilizations of the Near East and today’s Iraq (3000 BCE – 500 CE)
Materials: The most common materials used in making the Mesopotamian jewelry were gold, silver and semi precious stones.
Design: Frequently had elaborate geometric engravings on metal and such solid items as headdresses, necklaces, and earrings were made. There were elements of religious trademarks like the tree of life.
The Ancient Greek & Romans: Prehistoric to Classical Period, (1600 BCE-400 CE)
Greek Jewelry: Concerned with neat workmanship and harmonious aesthetics featuring such reliefs as leaves, any realized animals, and divinities. Unsurprisingly, gold, garnets, emeralds and pearls were widely used.
Roman Jewelry: This was highly marked with themes of opulence and status, although it also utilized gold and stones such as emerald and ruby. New designs in Roman jewelry include the glass beads and coin types of jewelries.
Eastern Roman Empire 330–1453
Materials: Precious metals especially gold, and mineral gemstones especially emeralds and pearls.
Design: The Byzantine period was characterized by religious motifs; and the most common were the Christian motifs. Complex and big patterns described the richness and authority of the Byzantine nob
Medieval Europe (500–1500 CE)
Materials: Gold, by silver, and even religious relics were included in jewelry. The sense of professionalization gradually emerged based on them: jewelry-making guilds were established.
Design: Crosses, beads or chaplets, and crucifixes with the pendants and other religious symbols like the reliquary were frequently used. Men wore brooches, belt buckles and rings, the same way women wore them.
Renaissance (1300–1600 CE)
Materials: Gold and silver continued to be used, together with jewels, enamel and pearls.
Design: Jewelry of Renaissance was informed with motives of ancient Greek and Roman esteems and intricate workmanship. People and faces, figures, and enviable necklaces.
Significance: Jewelry was depicted as the emblem of abundance and majority’s attitude and it was worn by monarchs and the noble class.
In Baroque as well as Rococo period (1600–1800 CE).
Baroque Jewelry: Especially for its luxurious, oriental emeralds, elaborated metals, and prominent engravings.
Rococo Jewelry: Simpler and filled with perky images of flowers; contours are smoothed and the patterns themselves are finer and not as knotty as the ones seen on the male pieces.
Victorian Era (1837–1901)
Materials: Diamond, gold, silver and fancy colored gemstones were the mostly used .
Design: There are three types of Victorian jewelry namely Romantic, Mourning and Aesthetic periods which are respective to the society of the Victorian age. Locket and flowers where incorporated in mourning jewelry and the use of the jet and black enamel while the romantic jewelry used heart shaped jewelry.
Art Nouveau (1890–1910)
Materials: Metallic elements, semi-precious stones, enamel, and gold were the most used.
Design: Art nouveau jewelry thus depicted natural forms, curves, kelms, floral images and mythical creatures. This style was inspired by the preference of people as a reaction to the greater industrialization and mechanization during the 19th century.
Art Deco (1920–1935)
Materials: The colts are the most valuable breeds, and their current selling prices of colts are $280, platinum, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies.
Design: Art Deco jewelry was based on modernism, it incorporated geometric shapes, sharp lines with products that exhibited symmetry. This period embraced technologies in jeweler and also the materials that are used in the making of jewelries.
