Jewelry In Ancient Middle East-00-6457

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Body adornment
Adornment is a universal concept; evety culture on earth has found some way to adorn itself. Jewelry is only part of this phenomenon. Body adornment includes tattooing, decorative scar-ring, body-piercing and make-up. This book concentrates specifically on jewelry. This desire for adornment has influenced the techniques for jewelry making and has often driven them. Civilizations and cultures have developed their own distinctive styles and methods of making, separated by geographical distance and time, but have consistently used similar materials.
Jewelry before metal
There is evidence to suggest that jewelry is as old as man, but how did early humans go about making it? They used materials that were imme-diately available: shells, seeds, animal teeth and claws and subsequently, stones. They made simple beads by exploiting a natural hole in the object or piercing it at the thinnest point. Although stone carving developed throughout the Neolithic age (9000—4500 BCE), pottery and weaving were invented, and stone objects reached new heights in line and finish, [fashion jewelry] ...
... did not change much apart from the ability to carve regular shapes and impart surface decoration.
Use of metal in jewelry
Almost every metal, when it was first discovered, was used to decorate the human body. Although silver and gold are die most well-known and frequently used metals for jewelry, many other metals have been used and continue to be used today. Our perception of these metals is influenced by the effect of explorers of the mid-sixteenth century opening up mines in the
New World where supplies of gold and silver seemed inexhaustible. Prior to that, gold and silver were scarce and hard to come by. It now seems incomprehensible just how precious these metals once were.
Techniques in metal
In antiquity, it was most likely standard practice for craftsmen to make their own simple tools (a practice that still applies today to specialist tools). Various tools used by ancient craftsmen survive. The need for annealing was realized during the earliest stages of metalworking, as far back as the ancient Egyptians.
The development of the production of wire was an important stage in the development of metalworking, and large amounts of wire are found in ancient [fashion jewelry]; it was used to make beads, chains and for surface decoration.
Ancient Middle East
Early jewelry from this area includes elements from a variety of sources, some several hundred miles apart. Brightly coloured and unusual raw materials were the most popular and demand for these might have been a significant factor in the development of the extensive trade networks that were already in place long before 5000 BCE. Some of the earliest examples discovered in the royal tombs of the Sumerian city of Ur. The Sumerians' skills as goldsmiths spread over Western Asia and north to areas of Turkey and southern Greece.

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