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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 & 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 & 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.

The homo sapiens that lived in Africa provide us with the first sign of a culture using jewelry. They have found snail shell beads at Blombos Cave situated in the side of a limestone cliff in South Africa that date back to over 75,000 years ago. If we go to the other side of Africa at Enkapune Ya Moto in Kenya they have found beads made from ostrich egg shells that date back to over 40,000 years ago.

Egypt is known for the Great Pyramids & the Ancient Sphinx but it has created some remarkable jewelry as well. In fact we see the first signs of established jewelry making starting to appear here around 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. The Egyptians used many of the materials that we use to make jewelry today such as gemstones but glass was their preferred medium. With glass they could color it to satisfy their various tastes & needs. In fact for every gemstone that they could find in nature they were able to make a glass replicate of it. As time passed on other cultures such as the Ancient Phoenicians used Egyptian jewelry as a template for their own unique designs.

Color was very important for the Ancient Egyptians. To them different colors meant different things. If we would like to examine this matter further we need to look no further than the Book of the Dead. It tells us that the necklace of Isis that was to be placed on the mummy’s desk needed to be red. The color red would satisfy Isis’s need for blood. Green jewelry on the other hand symbolized new growth in the area of fertility & crops. Egyptian jewelry was made primarily in large workshops that were attached to temples & palaces.

Jewelry development & production started to spring up in the cities of Sumer & Akkad in Ancient Mesopotamia around 4000 years ago. It tended to be made from metal leaf & was often set in a large number of brightly colored stones such as lapis agate carnelian & jasper. Various shapes like leafs grapes cones & spirals were often utilized in their designs. Being masters of record keeping the Ancient Mesopotamians have provided us with huge archives of detailed records detailing both the creation & trading of jewelry.

Did you enjoy our little departure from our regular heart jewelry articles? It’s very interesting to see how the art form of jewelry making has developed over the history of man.

Learn more about The History of Jewelry. Stop by Betsy Johnson’s site where you can find out all about Beautiful Heart Jewelry & what it can do for you.