People have worn jewelry for roughly 100,000 years, far longer than they have written or farmed. This section runs from the first pierced shells to the platinum designs of the 1930s.
Prehistory
The oldest known ornaments are shell beads. Pierced Nassarius shells from Blombos Cave in South Africa date to roughly 75,000 years ago, and similar beads from sites in Morocco and Israel are older still. Neanderthals may have worn eagle talons as ornaments. Later Ice Age peoples carved beads and pendants from bone, ivory and teeth. The prehistoric jewelry page looks at what these finds suggest about early identity and trade.
Early civilizations
The first cities brought metalworking and long-distance trade in stones. In Mesopotamia, the Royal Tombs of Ur (around 2600 to 2500 BC) held gold leaf headdresses, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and carnelian from the Indus Valley, described in Mesopotamian jewelry. Ancient Egyptian jewelry used gold, lapis, turquoise, carnelian and glazed faience in broad collars and amulets, most famously in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Farther east, Persian jewelry runs from Achaemenid gold armlets and the Oxus Treasure to Safavid and Qajar court jewels.
The classical Mediterranean
The Etruscans of central Italy mastered granulation, the fusing of tiny gold beads onto a surface, a technique jewelers in the 19th century worked hard to copy. See Etruscan jewelry. Ancient Greek jewelry moved from Mycenaean gold to the fine Hellenistic wreaths and Heracles knots made after Alexander's conquests, when garnets and other colored stones arrived from the East. Ancient Roman jewelry added engraved signet rings, cameos, pearls and coins set into gold.
Asia, India and the Americas
Jewelry traditions outside Europe developed on their own terms. In China, jade carving goes back to Neolithic cultures, and the Chinese imperial jade page follows it to the Qing court and Burmese jadeite. Jewelry of East and Southeast Asia covers kingfisher feather work, Japanese hair ornaments and Thai and Burmese goldwork. The jewelry of India spans Indus Valley beads, Mughal kundan setting and the nine-gem navaratna. In the Americas, pre-Columbian jewelry includes Muisca and Quimbaya gold, Maya jade and Aztec turquoise mosaic. Traditional and tribal jewelry looks at living traditions such as Maasai beadwork, Tuareg silver and Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise.
Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Medieval jewelry includes Byzantine enamel, the garnet cloisonne of the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo burial, reliquary pendants and inscribed posy rings. Faceting was still simple, and most stones were polished as cabochons or table cuts. Renaissance jewelry favored enameled gold pendants, baroque pearls and table-cut stones, and the Cheapside Hoard, found in London in 1912, preserves a jeweler's stock from the early 17th century. Advances in stone cutting during these centuries are traced in the history of faceted gems.
The 19th century
The Victorian jewelry era (1837 to 1901) is usually split into Romantic, Grand and Aesthetic periods. It produced sentimental lockets, hair jewelry and the black Whitby jet of mourning dress, and after 1867 a flood of South African diamonds reached European jewelers. Revival styles copied Etruscan, Egyptian and Renaissance work.
Art Nouveau and Art Deco
Around 1890, Art Nouveau jewelry turned away from heavy diamond settings toward flowing lines, insects, flowers and the female form. Designers such as Rene Lalique used horn, opal, glass and plique-a-jour enamel and valued design over intrinsic worth. By the 1920s taste had swung again. Art Deco jewelry used platinum, diamonds and calibre-cut colored stones in crisp geometric forms, a style named after the 1925 Paris exhibition of decorative arts.
Related reading
Many of the gems in these pages have their own histories. The history of gemstone cutting explains how faceting changed the look of jewelry, and gemstone meanings and folklore covers the beliefs that shaped which stones people chose.
Frequently asked questions
What is the oldest known jewelry?
Pierced shell beads are the oldest widely accepted ornaments. Finds from Blombos Cave in South Africa are about 75,000 years old, and some from North Africa and the Levant are older.
When did faceted gemstones become common?
Simple faceted cuts such as the point cut and table cut spread in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. The brilliant cut developed over the following centuries.