40 facts about jewelry

People have always loved decorating themselves. And the more scientists learn about our distant ancestors, the more they realize that they were really interested in the art of decorating their bodies. Here are some interesting facts about jewelry from around the world.

Findings and Traditions

• The oldest jewelry, which is known to scientists, are 100,000-year-old beads from tritium shells.
• The word "jeweler" comes from the old French word jouel, which, in turn, came from the Latin jocale, which means "toys."
• Americans call jewelry jewelry, and the British - jewelery.
• In many cultures, ornaments were worn to ward off evil. For example, the same function had ankh, also known as the Coptic cross.

Material for ornaments

• Throughout history, jewelry with live insects has remained popular. The Egyptians may have been the first to start it. They wore decorations with a scarab beetle during the battle. Mexicans, for example, used beetles as ornaments, and in Madagascar, sizzling cockroaches were popular. During the Victorian era in England, often used huge bright living beetles, which were attached to clothing with tiny golden chains.
• 24-carat gold is 99.9% pure, but most American and European jewelers believe that it is too soft for jewelry. However, 24-carat gold is the norm for jewelers in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

• Platinum alloys are clean by 90-95%.
• Masters of the manufacture of Venetian glass on the island of Murano have developed a glass with the inclusion of gold threads, crystal and enameled, and also were able to find more creative and revolutionary ways to create glass beads. Necklaces of Venetian glass began to be made in the early 1200's, and they still remain popular.

• Diamonds were first produced in India.
• The crown of the British Empire includes a massive "Cullinnan" - the largest of the rough diamonds found. It was opened in 1905 and weighed 3106.75 carats, or 621.35 grams.

Secrets of the stones

• Amber is an organic stone made from fossilized wood tar. To qualify as amber, it must be at least one million years old. However, there are many ornaments from the reconstructed resin, moreover, quite cheap. If the price seems too profitable to be believable, it is not amber.

• The age of amber can be more than 120 million years.
• Amethyst is just a kind of quartz, but its beautiful violet color made this semiprecious stone popular, and it is often used for jewelry. Pink, smoky quartz and citrine are also very popular.
• Emeralds were mined by the Egyptians back in 3500 BC. E.
• The greed is sometimes called the "heavenly stone".
• A large quality ruby is worth more than a diamond of a similar size.

• In the Indian language, ruby is called isratnaraj, which means "the king of precious stones."
• The most popular color of sapphires is blue, but these stones are found in other shades.

• Turquoise is found only in several places on the planet. The largest deposit is in the southwest of the USA. This stone is associated with the traditional jewelry of Native Americans.

• What is an organic stone? It appeared due to living organisms, and not in the course of natural geological processes. Organic stones include pearls, corals and amber.

Status badge

• Throughout history, jewelry has been a sign of a high status of the owner. In ancient Rome, for example, only some high-ranking people were allowed to wear rings.

• In the west, men who wore earrings in the 19th and most of the 20th century, were perceived as effeminate. Now this is perfectly acceptable.
• In some African cultures, huge earrings are a sign of masculinity, valor, power and status.
• For the first time, wedding rings began to be used in 1477, when Maximilian I and Maria Burgunda married.
• Men began to wear engagement rings only in the twentieth century. This practice has emerged because of the development of the jewelry industry, as manufacturers wanted to increase sales and market coverage.

• By the mid-1940s, 85% of weddings in North America included rings for both partners.
• In the early 1980s, the English rock band The Smiths popularized jewelry for men, reviving the hippie trend of the 1960s. Given the conservatism of the British, it was a bit shocking to see a man who wears jewelry made of beads and precious necklaces.

Jewelry and religion

• In traditional Islam, the wearing of gold by men is a social taboo, and women can only use earrings.
• The Christian Bible opposes the wearing of gold, as mentioned in the writings of the apostles Peter and Paul.

How our ancient ancestors adorn themselves

• 75,000-year-old beads made from seashells were found in Africa in the ancient cave Blombos.
• Another bead, made from the shell of an ostrich egg, was found in Kenya. They have an age of 40,000 years.

• Our Cro-Magnon ancestors wore simple necklaces and bracelets made of bones, teeth, berries and stones strung on the skin or tendons of animals.
• Ancient carved bracelets made from mammoth tusks were found in Russia.
• Copper jewelry began to appear 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists of the Museum of Ancient History in Lower Austria found the grave of a jeweler. This allowed to refute the old assumption that in ancient times, only men were jewelers.

Jewelers of the First Civilizations

• Jewelry appeared in ancient Egypt about 3000-5000 years ago. They were mostly made of gold.

• The Mesopotamian tombs, located in the Royal Necropolis of ancient Ur, date from 2900-2300 BC. Archaeologists have found in them magnificent jewelry ornaments from gold, silver and semiprecious stones.
• In ancient Assyria, men and women wore a huge amount of jewelry, including amulets, ankle bracelets and massive necklaces.

• Indians have been making jewelry for more than 5000 years.
• The Chinese began to make jewelry around the same time, but they became widespread only about 2000 years ago, when Buddhism began to gain popularity.
• The ancient Chinese loved silver much more than gold. They used it to make beautiful ornaments with kingfisher feathers and various blue stones. But the favorite stone for them was jade, and the Chinese even endowed it with such human qualities as firmness, strength and beauty.