How Has Heart Jewelry Developed Over The History of Man?

We thank you for all the kind response regarding the heart jewelry articles that we have written in the past. It's very heart-warming. Today we would like to go back in time a bit further and write a more "generic" history of jewelry in general. The art form that we know of as "Jewelry Making" as been around for thousands of years, and different cultures have incorporated it in different ways. If we examine their pieces of jewelry we will gain some insight into the inner working of these ancient cultures.

If we take a look at the homo sapiens in Ancient Africa we see the first signs of a culture creating jewelry. Snail shell beads have been found at Blombos Cave in South Africa that date back to 75,000+ years ago. On the other side of Africa, at Enkapune Ya Moto in Kenya, beads made from ostrich egg shells have been found that date back to 40,000+ years ago.

When we think of Egypt we think of the pyramids and the sphinx, right? What about jewelry? Well, it is here that we find the first signs of established jewelry making around 3,000 – 5,000 years ago. Egyptians made their jewelry out of the same materials that we make jewelry out of today. For example, gemstones, but they preferred to make their jewelry out of glass, which they could color to satisfy their particular tastes. This meant that for every gemstone that they could find in nature, they were able to manufacture a glass replication that could mimic it. Other cultures have used the template of Egyptian jewelry in their own jewelry making. Consider the Phoenicians for example, who copied many Egyptian designs.

To the Ancient Egyptians color was very important, not only for the beauty, but because it meant different things. The Egyptian Book of the Dead provides us with more details. For example, the necklace of Isis that was to be place on the neck of a mummy needed to be red in color. They believed that this red color would satisfy Isis's need for blood. Green jewelry, on the other hand, was used to symbolize growth in the area of crops and fertility. The Egyptians made their jewelry in large workshops that were often attached to palaces and temples.

Around 4000 years ago we see jewelry development and production starting to spring up in the cities of Sumer and Akkad in Ancient Mesopotamia. This jewelry tended to be made from metal leaf, and was often set in a large number of brightly-colored stones, such as lapis, jasper, agate, and carnelian. They also incorporated various shapes, such as grapes, leafs, cones and spirals into their designs. Since the Ancient Mesopotamians were also masters in the area of record keeping, huge archives of detailed records relating to the creation and trading of jewelry have been unearthed in various archaeological sites.

We hope this little departure from our usual heart jewelry articles has been fun and educational. It's amazing to see how jewelry making as evolved over the years.

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