Ancient jewelry of the middle east

Ancient jewelry of the middle east<br /><br />The art of jewelry has influenced many cultures. Traditionally, jewelry displays distinctive character, presents intense artistic images, and carries rich cultural assets through plasticity and expression. The language of jewelry is fairly complex and hard to interpret. Just like popular ancient languages that dominated in certain historic periods, such as Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, Greek and Latin, the language of jewelry and the jewelry items themselves have changed and developed in time, according to laws and customs of historical development. Stylistic evolution from the Early Oriental to Hellenistic Romanian trends served as a basis for the stylistic changes in the art of jewelry making. Aside from its external beauty properties, every jewelry object has a second, internal life triggered by its semantic significance and perceived through ones mind, intuition or aesthetic sense.<br /><br />Every artifact serves as a symbol of information. Apotropeic emblems, borrowed from everyday life, epos, or myths, and used in the art of jewelry making, carried a certain magical connotation. Popularity of a particular mythological plot line was connected to the very zeitgeist of the given time period, since the jewelry maker lived through it and tended to be deeply involved with the contemporary events. The art reflected the masters interests in what was currently happening with the society.<br /><br />Through the evolution of jewelry items it is possible to trace not only the historical and cultural situation, but also economical, political and social sides of ancient civilizations, as well as symbolism and semantics of the art produced.<br /><br />The ancient masters employed various techniques, including casting, granulation, filigree, and inlay, among others. Certain items of jewelry serve as a testament to the advanced artistic skills of the jewelers. Among precious and semi precious stones used by jewelers in the ancient world the most popular were garnets, rubies, cornelian stones, pearls and emeralds.<br /><br />It is known that diadems were a special sign of a god or royalty. Gold garlands were kept in temples as parts of gold funds and were given as rewards for special achievements. Fragments of diadems were found among the finds of Oxus see Treasure of Oxus, Dalton, London, 1964, and Tillya tepe Bactrian gold, Leningrad, 1985.<br /><br />Characters crowned by similar head jewelry can be found on coins, intaglios, pottery, paintings, frescos and reliefs, which allow us to recognize them as royalty or god like creatures. Most of diadems were gold. Sometimes they are made by the stamping method. Details and fragments of diadems are made in the shape of leaves, trefoils or rosettes.<br /><br />Diadems were fastened onto a headdress, or sometimes were placed directly on the head: <br /><br />and on the turban, in front of he set the golden plate, the holy crown, as the Lord commanded Moses Leviticus, p.89 The Israels daughters wore gold head bands Isaiah 3:18 19. Daughters of Israel wore gold headbands Isaiah, 3.18 19.<br /><br />Funeral diadem like one from the Tomb near Jerusalem, 1st BC. Plate cut from a sheet of gold, is not decorated, ends are tapered, has holes for fastenings. Cut trefoils are pasted onto a thin embossed ribbon, forming a diadem. A rosette is formed in its center, symbolizing Sun, with two sets of trefoils framing it on both sides. The entire composition is inscribed within a triangle, analogous to a triangular gable crowning a portico or facade. The pediment was the crowning feature of the Greek temple front. In this case, it is not a simple coincidence, but rather the idea of crowning the human body by a diadem, completing the entire jewelry ensemble. Similar elements may be found among examples of head jewelry of Minor Asia see Ldossiers de larcheologie 40, 1980 p.73, and p.22.<br /><br />Earrings represent one of the most popular types of adornments at all times. There are many types and kinds of earrings. Mostly earrings were made of gold, sometimes of bronze earrings, and made out of electrum, naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver.<br /><br />As an example of earrings as a popular item of jewelry, can be seen on an ancient sculpture. Like on one where the ears of small head are decorated with simple rings no lock, which were made separately and especially for the head like Sumerian woman, white marble, Mari, 3 mill.<br /><br />One of the widely spread types is a circle base ring shape. Decorative element is represented by zoomorphic ends, anthropomorphic images, plant elements, figure images, and the actual ring shape with thickening ends. Jewelers used casting, forging and later granulation. Among other stones, garnet was frequently used both as inserts and as separate pendants.<br /><br />The earrings of the ancient Middle East demonstrate different stylistic trends: ancient Eastern, Hellenistic, Egyptian, and Hellenistic Roman, which is typical for the ancient culture and art in this region, because it was an integral part of the overall context of the history of ancient civilizations. The adornments in question demonstrate certain stages of the art of jewelry developing in the ancient world.<br /><br />Just as any other kind of adornments, earrings specified religious magical function, gender specification, prosperity evaluation, and territorial sign. When used as amulets, the jewelry had two main functions protection and proliferation, the latter implying fertility.<br /><br />We must note that any image used in the jewelry was supposed to carry magical properties; a certain inner meaning was placed into each object. The very shape of the earrings was a circle, which signified protection. Gold was a solar metal, energy giving; pomegranate carried similar connotations. In the art of Israel, pomegranates play a significant role see Romanoff P., Jewish Symbols on Ancient Jewish Coins. Philadelphia, 1944, p.51 54. The ancient earrings are intended for both ears and nose rings are mentioned in the Book of Isaiah see the Old Testament, 3.18.20, p. 682 :<br /><br />In that day the Lord will take away their tinkling ornaments about; the rings and nose jewelry. Isaiah, 3/18, 20.<br /><br />Earrings were worn by men and women In Tanah we read:<br /><br />Aaron said to them, Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. Exodus: 31, 32/2, 3; 33/4 6.<br /><br />Ancient Eastern Style<br /><br />The simplest circular earrings with thickened ends are attributed to 13th 12th BC. These earrings are made in the ancient eastern style; they were very popular and kept their popularity up to the present times.<br /><br />Like earring from Dir El Balach. Similar items: Beth Shamash, 18. Jewelry from the Ancient world, Jerusalem, 1969; Higgins R. Greek and Roman jewelry, London, 1961<br /><br />Based on its weight and diameter, we can identify some as a nose ring. This type was used as a good luck charm. Similar items: 18, catalogue, Jerusalem, 1969<br /><br />The simple style earrings as a ring, can be dated precisely by using radioisotope analysis, especially consider the items popularity. Earrings of that type are well known from the images of the Achaemenian era guards of Persepolis wore a single earring similar to the one in our collection; today youths and young men prefer this type as well. Earrings of this type were produced by casting method followed by polishing.<br /><br />It is necessary to note that the even earrings intended as pairs can differ by weight because of the degree of preservation. The weight is a very important issue of our items because some of them were used as an equivalent of money. A unified weight scale may have existed, and some jewelry items were specifically produced as a money equivalent. This tradition was widespread in ancient world. A detailed description can be found in Tanah. These types of earrings have vessel shaped pendants. It is possible that these earrings are made by adding the pendant to the traditional ring shaped earring which could be worn on its own.<br /><br />Stemmed vessel shaped pendants from Dir El Balach demonstrate that the ring in the shape of a woven chain can be an independent earring by itself. Most of similar items are found among articles of the Beth Shemesh treasure, so the earlier attribution 13th 12th BC. is accurate. The earrings are made in the same style as cornelian necklaces. The pendants are the exact copy of each other, although different materials are used.<br /><br />Earrings with zoomorphic ends are made in a different Eastern Hellenistic style. One of them has an amphora shaped pendant. One is gold, the other is bronze. The earrings are based on a simple hoop.