Jewellery always mattered
People have made jewellery using all kinds of materials throughout history. The oldest jewellery that has been found are beads made of seashells. Experts think they are some 142.000-150.000 years old. Can you even imagine that amount of time? This clearly says something about our need to adorn ourselves. People communicated via jewellery long before the wheel was invented. Jewellery. Always. Mattered.
Oldest jewellery made of metal
If the oldest jewellery is not made of metal, when did gold, silver and copper come into the picture?There is gold jewellery from ancient Egypt, dating back to around 3.500 BCE. A 24-carat gold pendant was found in Bulgaria, in the area around lake Varna. It dates to 4.300 BCE, which makes it the oldest gold jewellery found so far. It's possible that the people who lived there at that time were the first ones to figure out how to process gold. Silver was probably discovered around 5.000 BCE and there is a piece of copper jewellery that dates to 7.000 BCE. In the history of humankind, jewellery made of metal is new.
I leave it to the historians and archaeologists to tell more about this, so I do encourage you to search online for more information if you are interested.
Eternal life
What I want to say here is that metal has eternal life. Once it has been extracted from the ground and processed into pure metal, it can be used for metalwork, shaped and melted, over and over again. The metal itself stays forever.
Jewellery made of precious metal will not be ruined over time. It may tarnish (sterling silver does, because it is an alloy with copper). It may go out of fashion or be forgotten. It may get misshaped or even break. But it will not dissolve.
This is one of the things that I love about metal: its eternal life.
Jewellery made of precious metals may not be the oldest jewellery we know, but it has the chance to live forever. This is how we may enjoy – in our own jewellery box or in museum collections - jewellery that was made generations or even centuries ago.
The value of precious metals and the fact that they can be melted down again is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing for our planet. It is a curse for jewellery, as we may have lost some interesting pieces along the way, that were melted down for their material value.
But that’s another story…
If you want to read my first Love song to metalwork, you can follow this link.