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.

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.

When we think of Egypt images of the Great Pyramids and the Ancient Sphinx come to mind. And jewelry making? Not so much…but it is in Ancient Egypt (about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago) that we find the first signs of established jewelry making. Egyptians made their jewelry out of many of the materials that we use today…such as gemstones, but they preferred to make their jewelry out of glass, as it could be colored to satisfy their needs and tastes. For every gemstone that they could find, they were able to create a glass replication that could mimic it. As years went on, other cultures, such as the Phoenicians, used Egyptian jewelry as a template for their own 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 and crops. Egyptian jewelry was made primarily in large workshops that were attached to temples and palaces.

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 this little departure from our usual heart jewelry articles has been fun and educational. It’s amazing to see how jewelry making as evolved over the years.

Want to find out more about Jewelry Origins, then visit Betsy Johnson’s site on how to choose the best Heart Jewelry for your needs.