The Elegance of Antique Jewelry

The title should in fact be extended further than this: The Elegance of Symbol in Antique Jewelry.

Of all the properties, be it aesthetics or material value, that people, since the dawn of time, have invested in jewelry, the symbol of power is the most important.

Only very few could afford to be adorned with jewelry, so this extravagance is concentrated in upper classes of the civilizations we know. This can be documented from the finds in graves whether they date back to the Bronze Age (2.500 B.C.) or the Middle Ages. Rich graves are better preserved and gold, silver and gems better survive through centuries than leather, wood, textiles, bone, etc. which common people could afford.

All levels of classes are involved in producing jewelry, from the workers in the mines to the jewellers and goldsmiths. We find this to be true whether we talk about the Antiquity or the present.

But also poets, musicians, healers, astronomers, astrologers, painters and philosophers have illustrated the beauty and meaning of gems and jewelry and this narration of culture are shared by all members of society.

These different descriptions and approaches also share the immanent and common purpose that culture invests in meaning: to identify and legitimise power and class differences. Jewelry is always used to signal power, distance, control, prestige, status and place in hierarchy.

Most cultures combine different gems and metals with different level of status, hierarchy, medicine, stars, destiny and the likes.

Symbolic meaning and jewelry also associates power with the beauty, value and magic. Even if each culture intermix and exchange ideas, their cultural representation and different traditions, religion and way of control can be identified through the study of jewelry.

It is the elegance of this symbolic distribution throughout societies, which contribute to the maintenance of hierarchy as culture. As long as all members of a culture love songs and stories about the beauty and bliss of jewelry, they play a role in making symbolic meaning narrated in a meaningful way. Hereby binding together culture, history and hierarchy.


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