Collector Antiquities: Middle Eastern Jewelry

Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian tombs of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC have given us a great quantity of gold and silver jewellery, including headdresses, necklaces and earrings inset with precious and semi-precious stones. Middle Eastern jewellery incorporating animal figures as amulets is also commonly found. However pieces from this area and time are seldom on the market and are not likely to be actually worn.

Very fine gold and silver jewellery was also made in Persia, Anatolia and Phoenicia.

Manufacturing techniques of Middle Eastern jewellery included granulation (surfaces decorated with clusters of tiny granules of gold), filigree, inlaid gems, and cloisonné and champlevé enamel.

Within the Middle East there is clear Egyptian influence on Phoenician work and of Mesopotamian styles on Persian pieces, and this suggests widespread trade and other contacts.

Egyptian Jewellery

The ancient Egyptians produced skilfully chased, engraved, soldered, repoussé, and inlaid jewellery.

They often worked in gold and silver and created pieces inlaid with semi-precious stones such as cornelian, lapis lazuli, jasper, turquoise, and amethyst and also with enamel and glass which was for a long while a highly prized medium.

Ancient Egyptian jewellery included diadems, wide bead necklaces or collars, square pectorals, hoop, hinged, or bead bracelets, and rings.

Many higher class Egyptians wore two bracelets on each arm: one on the wrist and one above the elbow.

A particularly popular ornament of ancient Egyptian jewellery was the signet ring. For a very long time the seal ring, containing a scarab whose base was designed with various hieroglyphs and other motifs, was worn by a large number of Egyptians.

Large numbers of pieces of ancient Egyptian jewellery have been found in the tombs of kings and courtiers alike. Whereas the jewellery of kings is not accessible to the occasional modern wearer, simple necklaces re-strung with colourful faience beads can be easily acquired. The modern wearer should not be put off by the fact that the majority of such beads were originally used for mortuary purposes.

Other items of ancient Egyptian jewellery such as bead necklaces strung with a steatite scarab seal, much as they were originally worn thousands of years ago, are easily obtained.

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(alternative spelling: middle eastern jewelry, egyptian jewelry)