On ancient jewelry
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a post of mine from 2015. Why? Because I feel like it, that’s why.]
I’m not all that fond of precious jewels. That’s very fortunate, because I don’t own many.
Richard Burton would have gotten off easy with me. When I got married, I wore a plain gold wedding ring, one that had been in my family since the 1800s, and never missed or thought of a diamond engagement ring. It just wasn’t my thing.
I have plenty of non-precious pieces of jewelry, though, and I’m particularly keen on this guy’s work (if you’re interested in a gift for somebody—they look better in real life than in the photos, for some reason). On reading the maker’s bio [link broken], it occurs to me that the following may be the underlying reason I’m so fond of his jewelry:
I was inspired as a young boy by visiting the great art museums in New York City, and spent many hours in the Egyptian wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at the gold jewelry.
Aha! Ancient jewelry was his inspiration. Now that, I’ve always liked. And the thing that has long fascinated and amazed me about very ancient jewelry is that the design of most of it could be easily worn today; it never dates. And what’s more, jewelry that is thousands of years old and displayed in museum collections looks, for the most part, practically new.
For example, please take a look at the stunning examples here and reflect on how very old most of them are.
Care to guess the age of this one?
Hint: it’s from Ur.
Which makes it about 4500 years old, give or take a few.
Here’s one that’s practically modern:
And to the inhabitants of Ur, it would be futuristic. But to us, it’s a bit old: it’s made of emeralds, garnets, and gold, and is a Helenistic piece from about 200 BC.
And of course, the whole thing also reminds me of poetry, in this case Yeats:
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Although neither Grecian nor Byzantine (the latter being the site of where Constantinople and now Istanbul lies), and made in the late 1700s in India, this is something akin to the way I always pictured the artifact in the last verse of the poem:
Or this, also from India and the same period, which includes enamel and gold (as in the poem):
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
so cool
My spouse is partial to lapis lazui jewlery. Looking for a ring with an inset, the gem is fragile (Italian?).
I would gladly wear something like that necklace from Ur.
I haven’t checked recently, but the Metropolitan Museum of Art used to sell nice reproductions of ancient jewelry.
Heard a theory once all gold from ancient Egypt is all still floating around the planet being used today.
To me the historical pieces are priceless
In 1539 the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels — but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day.
–“The Maltese Falcon”
https://criticalcommons.org/Members/m_friers/clips/maltese-falcon-opening-scene/view
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Somewhere in my top ten GOAT movies.
Beautiful.
@Skip,
Yes, there is a theory that gold is so rare that every piece of gold jewelry today has a small bit that was originally gifted to the Pharaohs. I don’t know if that’s true or not, since so much gold has been dug up in the last 3000 years, but that’s the theory.
Yes, the Metropolitan used to have nice reproductions of ancient jewelry in their catalog – my mother had several of their pieces, and I have them now, as well as a couple that I bought myself. My own particular favorite is a replica of the pearl earrings from Vermeer’s painting.
The Winterthur museum also had a nice range of replica antique jewelry – I had several pairs of their enamel and semi-precious stone earrings, which always garnered compliments when I wore them.
Those are fantastic ancient examples. There was a famous exhibition of Byzantine art at the Met years ago. Our parish arranged a bus trip to see it one day.
It would be a great short-fiction seed crystal, I would think – that notion of a jeweled artificial bird singing of prophecy to the nobles. Sounds like a theme that a number of fiction writers would be eager to take up. It has been in the past, I somehow recall.
It’s funny – this being a refurbished post from years ago (though I don’t recall when I started reading this blog; I might perhaps have been late to catch the premiere), I would hope to have something new to say that had developed in the interim, some new reaction. But in the end, all I can say is that Canada must be annexed.
In Philly, where I am from, There is a huge exhibit of the Treasures of Ur. The jewelry is amazing as are the other artifacts. All are housed at the University Of Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. One of the best museums in the city, which doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic. The Philadelphia Art Museum and Barnes get all the attention. (There are A LOT of museums to see – get a Philly Pass if you go and just makes a few days of it) https://www.penn.museum/collections/highlights/neareast/location/ur.php
I share your admiration for ancient jewelry. This ring that belonged to Caligula is a favorite.
https://mymodernmet.com/caligula-sapphire-ring-marlborough-gem/
Dwaz,
That is an amazing sapphire!
The Internet says about 2/3 of above ground gold has been mined SINCE 1950, so I that statement about Egypt and Pharoahs seems unlikely.
Here are some other interesting gold facts I found (tonnes = metric tons, about 2,200lbs):
But does Fort Know really have any gold?
Indeed, “What rough beast…”
+ Bonus (speaking of Yeats…among other things…)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43297/lapis-lazuli
– – – – – – –
+ Thanks for the tip about Philly….
@Rufus,
Thanks for the info! I had heard the theory before, but you brought the receipts. That list is fascinating. Thanks again!
There was an environmentalist when protesting about a proposed US gold mine claimed that gold was only used for jewlery.
Just one other essential use comes to mind.
Gold is ductile, does not corrode, and is an exceptional electrical conductor. Every single microprosessor has hundreds of microscopic gold wires, each connecting a point on the chip to a point on the much larger chip carrier. For prototyping you use a stereo microscope to position each gold wire and untrasonically weld the gold wire between to each of the microchip and chip carrier circuit connectors. After testing the lid (with AMD or Intel or whatever logo) is put out the chip carrier. The chip carreir is then soldered to the circuit board’s gold plated electrical contacts.
That gold plating is typically 5 microns (0.000,005 in.) thick IIRC. Robots do the production type work, not an operator/technician on a gold wire welding machine.
Microprosessor and microchips sometimes fail because a microscopic gold wire weld fails or two wires cross (short circuit). Wheels within wheels ……
But of course the environmentalist meant well.
Can’t have that cyanide used to extract the gold from the ore getting loose.
And mining is icky.
Getting tomeish …..
I am curious–what made you recall you’d written this?
(and kudoos to you for remembering you had, eight years later!)