The History Of Jewelry Design

Middle Eastern and Western antiquity
Sumerian

Photograph:Sumerian gold and faience diadems from Queen Pu-abi's tomb, Ur, c. 2500 . In the British * Sumerian gold and faience diadems from Queen Pu-abi's tomb, Ur, c. 2500 BC. In the British The most ancient pandora bracelets examples of jewelry are probably those found in Queen Pu-abi's tomb at Ur in Sumeria (now called Tall al-Muqayyar), dating from the 3rd millennium BC. In the crypt the upper part of the queen's body was covered with a sort of robe made of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, carnelian, agate, and chalcedony beads, the lower edge decorated with a fringed border made of small gold, carnelian, and lapis lazuli cylinders. Near her right arm were three long gold pins with lapis lazuli heads, three amulets in the shape of fishwo made of gold and one of lapis lazulind a fourth amulet of gold with the figures of two seated gazelles. On the queen's head were three diadems, each smaller than the one below it, fastened to a wide gold band: the first, which came down to cover the forehead, was formed of large interlocking rings, while the second and third were made of realistically designed poplar and willow leaves(see photograph). Above the diadems were gold flowers, on drooping stems, the petals of which had blue and white decorations. On the back of the headdress was a spanish-type comb, with teeth decorated with golden flowers. Huge golden earrings, in the shape of linked, tapered, semitubular circles, completed the decoration of the head. On the neck was a necklace with three rows of semiprecious stones interrupted in the middle by an openwork flower in a gold circle. Many rings were worn on the fingers. There were large quantities of other jewelsmong them wrist and arm bracelets and pectoralselonging to the handmaidens, dignitaries, and even the horses that formed part of the funeral train. As was the custom, the queen's attendants had killed themselves in the crypt after the burial ceremony.

As this description suggests, Sumerian jewelry forms, much more numerous than those of modern jewelry, represent almost every kind developed during the course of history. Nearly all technical processes also were known: welding, alloys, filigree, stonecutting, and even enameling. Sources of inspiration, aside from geometry (disks, circles, cylinders, spheres), were the animal and vegetable world; and expressive forms were based on an essential realism enriched by a moderate use of colour.Tutankhamen, gold funerary mask found in the king's tomb, 14th century BC; in the Egyptian

The sensational discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen (18th dynasty; 1539?292 BC) revealed the fabulous treasures that accompanied an Egyptian sovereign, both during his lifetime and after pandora charms his death, as well as the high degree of mastery attained by Egyptian goldsmiths. This treasure is now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and represents the biggest collection of gold and jewelry in the world. The pharaoh's innermost coffin was made entirely of gold, and the mummy was covered with a huge quantity of jewels (see photograph). More jewels were found in cases and boxes in the other rooms of the tomb. The diadems, necklaces, pectorals, amulets, pendants, bracelets, earrings, and rings are of superb quality and of a high degree of refinement that has rarely been surpassed or even equaled in the history of jewelry.

The ornaments in Tutankhamen's tomb are typical of all Egyptian jewelry. The perpetuation of iconographic and chromatic principles gave the jewelry of ancient Egypthich long remained uncontaminated in spite of contact with other civilizations magnificent, solid homogeneity, infused and enriched by magical religious beliefs. Ornamentation is composed pandora beads largely of symbols that have a precise name and meaning, with a form of expression that is closely linked to the symbology of hieroglyphic writing. The scarab, lotus flower, Isis knot, Horus eye, falcon, serpent, vulture, and sphinx are all motif symbols tied up with such religious cults as the cult of the pharaohs and the gods and the cult of the dead. In Egyptian jewelry the use of gold is predominant, and it is generally complemented by the use of the three pandora colours of carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli or of vitreous pastes imitating them. Although there was a set, fairly limited repertoire of decorative motifs in all Egyptian jewelry, the artist-craftsmen created a wide variety of compositions, based mainly on strict symmetry or, in the jewelry made of beads, on the rhythmic repetition of shapes and colours.