Shell jewelry

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Shell Jewelry is a jewelry made primarily of shell, marine mollusk shells. Shell Jewelry is a type of shellcraft. One very common form of shell jewelry is a necklace consisting of a large number of beads, in which each individual bead is all over (but often drilled) a small sea slug shell. Different types of shell jewelry are made, including bracelets and earrings.

Like sea slugs, jewelry shells also occasionally use shell shells (bivalves) and tusk skin (scaphopods). Sometimes the shell jewelry is made of non-marine mollusks shells such as ground snail shells [1], or freshwater mollusk shells. Not all shell jewelry is made of intact leather; some types are made from the skin, including a layer of skin known as the mother of pearl or nacre, and "trapdoor" or operkulum which is part of some sea slug.

Lately, cheap shell jewelery is often found in tropical beach destinations, where it is offered to tourists as informal dress, or as a souvenir. However, shell jewelry has a very ancient past, and is very important in archeology and anthropology. In fact, shell beads are the oldest form of jewelry known, dating back over 100,000 years.

Video Shell jewelry

In prehistory

The world's oldest jewelery consists of two hollow beads made from the shells of the sea slug Nassarius gibbosulus . These beads were found in Skhul in Israel, and recently dated between 100,000 and 135,000 years ago. Similar ornaments (some made from Nassarius kraussianus shells and turmeric bittersweet Glycymeris nummaria and from Nassarius gibbosulus ) have been found in a number of Middle Paleolithic sites, and is considered a key part of the evidence for the theory that early modern anatomical humans in Africa and the Levant were more culturally sophisticated than previously thought. In some cases, shells have been transported far enough from the species' natural habitat. One example is the Oued Djebbana site in Algeria, for example, where a bead N. gibbosulus is found; by the time the shell is used there, the site is at least 190 km away from the sea.

Shell ornaments are very common during the Upper Paleolithic, from 50-40,000 years ago and so on, as they spread with modern humans to Europe and Asia. They generally take the form of hollow shells (as well as other hard organic materials such as teeth, bones, horns and mammoth ivory) that are suspected to have been suspended and used as jewelry. The most commonly found species are homuopherum sanguineum , Littorina obtusata , Cyclope species, Nassarius mutabilis and Nassarius gibbosulus . Fossil shells are used in conjunction with contemporary species. Some shells are stained with ocher. In Europe, the shells of Atlantic and Mediterranean species are used, once again circulating within hundreds of kilometers. During the neolithic period the shell necklace is made with the shells of 3 genera Spondylus, Glycymeris and Charonia.

Maps Shell jewelry

See also

• Heishe
• Dentalium shell
• Wampum
• Shell Gorge
• the Puka shell
• Cameo (engraving)

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References

• Abstract paper on a Polynesian snail tree snail used in jewelry

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Further reading

• Roger Neich, 2004 Jewelery and Jewelry of the Pacific , University of Hawaii Press, 189 pp.

Source of the article : Wikipedia