About Jewelry Making

Jewelry is a personal adornment that someone wears on his or her body or clothing in order to look classy or beautiful. There are various forms of jewelry that are used across the world and some of these are brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, bangles, anklets, arm bands, nose rings and more. The list of the possible kinds of jewelry is almost endless. While some of the jewelry types like the earring, necklace, rings and bracelets are fairly universal there are some forms of jewelry that are specific to some countries only.

Jewelry has been around for centuries. Ancient civilizations have their own form of jewelry and throw a lot of light on the kind of culture that existed in the era. It is thought that the first signs of jewelry were seen in Africa where people used beads made of snail shells. These have been dated back to more than 75,000 years ago. Some jewelry in Egypt was made from the shell of an ostrich egg.

Established jewelry making was first seen in Egypt, somewhere between 3000 to 5000 years ago. The people in this era used gold, silver and other precious metal to craft jewelry. They also used colored stones and precious gems to create some pieces. The jewelry that Egyptians wore indicated symbolized power and status and specific colors symbolized different things. For example, green indicated fertility and white indicated calmness.

The Greeks are known to have started using jewelry in 1600 BC. The initial pieces of art were made from beads and shells but by 300BC they had mastered the art of using pearls, amethysts, emeralds and rubies in their jewelry too. This adornment was worn only during public appearances and given away as gifts to people. It was also considered to be great for protecting the wearer from the 'evil eye'.

The history of jewelry can be detailed for place like Rome (from where we get the concept of brooches), post Roman Europe, India (that has a long history of jewelry that adorned the kings and queens from head to toe), North and South America (where jewelry making was taken to an all new sophisticated level by using all kinds of material) and China (where jade, metals and feathers were used to create great pieces of art).

The modern jewelry movement is said to have started around 1940 after the end of the World War II. Some of the notable people who took jewelry making to an all new level at this stage were Georg Jensen who used new materials like precious metal clay and colored stones, Mikimoto Kokichi who developed better ways of pearl harvesting and Robert Lee Morris who took jewelry making to another level by looking at it as an art that needed to be encouraged.

Today the largest jewelry market in the world is the United States with a market share of 30.8% followed by Japan, India, China and the Middle East.

NOTE: Information on this site is not guaranteed to be accurate. Some content is compiled from 3rd party sources. If you are aware of incorrect or outdated information, feel free to contact us.