Jewelry

I

Introduction

Jewelry, ornaments of precious metal, sometimes set with gems, worn since ancient times by people of all cultures for personal adornment, as badges of social or official rank, and as emblems of religious, social, or political affiliation. In its widest sense the term jewelry encompasses objects made of many kinds of organic and inorganic materials such as hair, feathers, leather, scales, bones, shells, wood, ceramics, metals, and minerals. However, the term properly refers to mounted precious or semiprecious stones and to objects made of valuable or attractive metals such as gold, silver, platinum, copper, and brass. Jewelry has been worn on the head in the form of crowns, diadems, tiaras, aigrettes, hairpins, hat ornaments, earrings, nose rings, earplugs, and lip rings; on the neck in the form of collars, necklaces, and pendants; on the breast in the form of pectorals, brooches, clasps, and buttons; on the limbs in the form of rings, bracelets, armlets, and anklets; and at the waist in the form of belts and girdles, with pendants such as chatelaines, scent cases, and rosaries. Current knowledge of ancient jewelry is derived largely from the preservation of personal objects in tombs. Information about the jewelry of cultures that did not bury valuables with the dead comes from portraits in surviving painting and sculpture. See Diamond; Gemstones.

II

Egyptian Adornments

The ancient Egyptians were familiar with most of the processes of ornamenting metal that are still employed today. They produced skillfully chased, engraved, soldered, repoussé, and inlaid jewelry. They commonly worked in gold and silver and inlaid these metals with semiprecious stones such as carnelian, jasper, amethyst, turquoise, and lapis lazuli and with enamel and glass. Their jewelry included diadems; wide bead necklaces or collars; square pectorals; hoop, hinged, or bead bracelets; and rings. Many Egyptians wore two bracelets on each arm, one on the wrist and one above the elbow. An especially popular ornament was the signet ring. Jewelry motifs—the scarab (beetle), lotus, falcon, serpent, and eye, for example—were derived from religious symbols. Vast quantities of jewelry have been found in tombs. Especially notable are ornaments from the tomb of Tutankhamun (reigned 1333-1323 bcbc), of the 18th Dynasty, now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. See Egyptian Art and Architecture.

III

Middle Eastern Jewelry

Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian tombs of the 3rd and 2nd millennia bc have yielded a great quantity of headdresses, necklaces, earrings, and animal amulet figures in gold, silver, and gems. A well-known example is a royal diadem from Ur made in the shape of thin gold beech leaves (British Museum, London).

Fine gold and silver jewelry was also made in ancient Anatolia, Persia, and Phoenicia. Techniques included granulation (in which surfaces are decorated with clusters of tiny grains of gold), filigree, inlaid gems, and cloisonné and champlevé enamel. Evidence of Egyptian influence on Phoenician work and of Mesopotamian styles on Persian work suggests widespread trade or other contact. See Mesopotamian Art and Architecture.

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IV

Greek and Roman Jewelry

Trojan and Cretan artisans of the Minoan period, although working at opposite ends of the Aegean region, executed earrings, bracelets, and necklaces of a common type that persisted from about 2500 bc to the beginning of the Classical period of Greek art (479-323 bc). Typical work consisted of thin coils and chains of linked and plaited wire, and thin foil formed into petals and rosettes. Stamping and enameling were common. Free use was also made of gold granulation and filigree. Stone inlay was rare. Prevailing motifs were spirals and naturalistic patterns drawn from cuttlefish, starfish, and butterflies. Jewelry found at Mycenae and Crete (Kríti), and now in the National Museum in Athens, includes a great number of small gold disks, perforated so that they could be attached to clothing, and gold diadems made of long oval plates covered with repoussé rosettes. See Aegean Civilization.

Archaic Greek jewelry and Etruscan and other Italian jewelry made in the period between 700 and 500 bc was almost entirely inspired by Egyptian and Assyrian examples imported by Phoenician merchants (see Etruscan Civilization). The techniques remained fundamentally the same as in the preceding period; embossed or stamped plates were the basic element in the work; granulation continued to be employed and was refined by Etruscan artists to an extraordinary degree. Representative of the period is a handsome Greek necklace from Rhodes that consists of seven rectangular gold plaques bearing winged figures in relief and edged with gold balls (7th century bc, British Museum).

In the Classical period of Greek art, granulation fell out of use, enamel reappeared, and filigree was widely employed. The style was characterized by delicacy and refinement. Plaited gold necklaces were decorated with flowers and tassels; hoop earrings with filigree disks and rosettes became popular. In the succeeding Hellenistic period (323-31 bc), pendant vases, winged victories, cupids, and doves became common motifs. At the same time, an important innovation was the introduction of large colored stones, especially garnets, at the center of designs. This scheme was further elaborated by the Romans, who used a variety of stones and set them in rows bordered with pearls. In Rome, enameling was common, and the art of cameo cutting reached its peak of virtuosity. Cameos, often of great size, were produced in large numbers. A fashionable form of jewelry was the fibula, a brooch resembling a safety pin. Rings were extremely popular, and at the height of the empire they were often worn on all ten fingers. Exotic ornaments made of amber were also in great demand. Toward the end of the Roman Empire, beginning in the 3rd century ad, necklaces and bracelets were formed of gold coins set in elaborate mountings of arcaded patterns; the classical style died out. See Greek Art and Architecture; Roman Art and Architecture.