Silver Jewelry-Themes Used in Egyptian Hand Crafted Jewelry


by David Beard - Date: 2007-01-17 - Word Count: 417 Share This!

Jewelry designs found in jewelry stores commonly used by artisans in Egypt for handcrafted Silver Jewelry are based on languages, and cultural icons. The cultural icons used are mostly from ancient sources and consist of important personages, religious objects and gods, and structures. Silver Bracelets, Rings, Cartouche, Key Chains, and Pendants are some of jewelry items that use Egyptian icons as themes.

It is very popular amongst Egyptian Artisans to create jewelry items that are personalized using English, Arabic, or Egyptian Hieroglyphs. This may be due to the development and use of cartouche in their culture. Thus many Silver Jewelry themes may consist solely of writing on the jewelry object. Hieroglyphs are the ancient Egyptian picture language used primarily by the ancient Royalty and the priest class. To the ancient ruling classes, information was power and hieroglyphics the secret code of their information storage. Arabic used on personalized jewelry is a beautiful flowing form similar to English script writing. Many jewelry pieces allow for a combination of languages. For example, double sided cartouche can have a name in English on one side and the same name in Hieroglyphics or Arabic on the other side.

Images of ancient Royalty are a favorite theme for hand crafted jewelry. For example, images of King Tut and Nefertiti are almost iconic as representing ancient royalty in Egypt and on silver jewelry. Another favorite subject for crafting both gold and silver jewelry items are images of the ancient Gods such as Isis and the Eye of Horus.

Other images of the Egyptian culture used are items such as pyramids (frequently tombs of the pharaohs), the ankh, musicians, and the scarab beetle (sacred and considered related to the sun, as seen in the dung balls they rolled and were associated with the sun god Ra). The Ankh is the symbol of life, power, and wealth.

As mentioned above, a very popular jewelry form, that is purely personalized, is the cartouche. Cartouche are symbols, a seal of state, or a personal chop. It is typically an elongated oval shape containing an important person's name in Hieroglyphics (usually in ancient Egypt that name was a Pharaoh's such as King Tutankhamen or a very important cleric and not for the commoners use). Silver cartouche as jewelry are a clever and exotic personal seal worn on a sterling silver chain around one's neck, and is a handsome art object. A great online Jewelry Store for seeing examples of items discussed above and for purchasing Egyptian Silver Jewelry is Egyptian Silver


Related Tags: egyptian jewelry, jewelry store, silver jewelry, fine jewelry, handcrafted jewelry, jewelry design

A1 Nile Papyrus a great source of many interesting, beautiful Egyptian handmade Crafts from Cairo. Egyptian Silver

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