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.

In Ancient Africa the homo sapiens provide us with the first signs of a culture using jewelry. Snail shell beads have been found at the Blombos Cave in South Africa that date back to over 75,000 years ago. At Enkapune Ya Moto in Kenya beads made from ostrich egg shells have been found that date back to over 40,000 years ago.

Egypt is known for the Great Pyramids and 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 and 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.

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, in the cities of Sumer and Akkad in Ancient Mesopotamia, jewelry development and production started to spring up. This jewelry was often made from metal leaf. It was often set in a large number of brightly-colored stones (such as lapis, jasper, carnelian, and agate). Various shapes, such as grapes, leafs, spirals and cones were also incorporated into their various designs. The Ancient Mesopotamians were also masters in the area of record keeping, and they have found in various archaeological sites huge archives of detailed records relating to not only the creation, but the trading, of jewelry.

We hope you have enjoyed this little departure from our regular heart jewelry articles. It\’s very interesting to see how this art form of jewelry making has developed over the years.

If you want to find out more about very beautiful heart jewelry or heart jewelry that is open, then visit Betsy Johnson\’s blogs.

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