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Jewelry's Cultural Facets
| Article
# : |
11369 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1986 |
4,807 Words |
| Author
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Ettagale Blauer
Ettagale Blauer is a freelance writer based in New York. |
The jewel is a small object fraught with meaning, a significant bauble, a frivolity heavy with history. In the five thousand years during which jewelry has been created, it has acquired eleven major and discrete roles, a heavy burden indeed for something of such delicacy. Some of these roles remain constant. Others exist for periods of time and then cease to have meaning as society changes. Some continue but enjoy diminished significance. Yet fragile as it is, jewelry endures where architecture and civilizations may fade.
The roles that jewelry and gemstones have played through history are firstly as talismen, or magical charms, to avert evil and bring good fortune; secondly some gemstones are believed to possess healing properties; thirdly as a measure of wealth; fourth to demonstrate cultural and social status; fifth as a convertible and portable form of money in times of danger; sixth as an ornamentation; seventh as an art form; eighth as a depiction of history; ninth as the culture's medium of exchange, that is, money itself, tenth as a symbol of love; and finally as a symbol of religious affiliation. Some of these roles are inextricably intertwined. Because jewelry is a measure of wealth, it carries a measure of social status. It can also be used in times of danger to enable people to carry their resources with them.
The materials used to create jewelry reflect the values of the culture that wears and treasures it: Gold is the most pervasive and longstanding element used to make jewelry, treasured not only for its beauty but because it is at once the most malleable of metals and yet impervious to virtually all acids. Gold taken from tombs where it has been hidden for thousands of years remains as bright as the day it was made.
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