Creating Splendour & Shine

Creating Splendour & Shine

by | Museums & Exhibitions

‘Splendour and Shine in the Flow of Time- Ethnic jewellery and traditional costume in a changing world’ is the title of a new exhibition by Irene Steiner in the Kreismuseums Zons, Germany. The exhibition will open this month and combines dress and adornment from Europe and abroad. The accompanying book will also appear this month (September 2021), and as usual Irene has left no stone unturned when it comes to our perspectives on dress and jewellery from the recent past. We sat down digitally in advance of the opening of the exhibition and talked about so many things related to curating an exhibition, working with jewellery, the current discussions about non-Western and Western adornment…Irene shares her personal and professional view on her work with us in this article.

How did you first become interested in ethnography? What sparked your interest?

Ethnologists are in a sense “fence sitters” – like, among others, diplomats, shamans, healers, interpreters and witches (in old high German “hagazussa”, old Icelandic literally “tunrida”) – they move between “worlds”, between realities separated in space, time, language or otherwise. Ethnology puts many things into perspective that at first seem self-evident. It is – broken down abstractly – about discovering, documenting, communicating, and researching cultural phenomena and structures. I always wanted to become an ethnologist. My parents were very interested in art history and travelled a lot. That left its mark on me. At the same time, there was a desire to fight disease and misery. I studied Ethnology/African studies and medicine at the University of Cologne. I dealt with topics of comparative religion, ethnomedicine, constructivism, women’s studies, material culture and especially jewellery and regional clothing. In 1996, I graduated with a master’s degree in ethnology, and in 2000, I became a medical doctor. The opportunity to work more intensively as an ethnologist arose when my daughters grew up.

You connect and research adornment from all over the world in your exhibitions: could you tell us a little about how that works and what its results are?

Moving freely between cultures and disciplines, all jewellery traditions were fascinating to me from the beginning. The classical separation of ethnology and folklore until 2000, only made sense in terms of sources and some methods. In terms of content, many disciplines could never understand the separation of “European cultures” and “the rest of the world”. Even around 1900, many cultural researchers, linguists, archaeologists, historians, and others conducted their researches both far away and at home; the boundaries between disciplines were more fluid as well.

But with this fluidity, how is it that non-Western jewellery is so often perceived as different from Western jewellery?

The fact that non-Western jewellery was perceived and researched as “different” had many causes.

On the one hand, jewellery research in Europe was initially devoted to the jewellery of the upper social classes (nobility, upper middle classes). Jewellery objects of the rural population were assigned to folklore and considered inferior, so to speak. Like “folk jewellery”, “ethnic jewellery” was perceived and collected as exotic “ornaments”, but rarely systematically researched or presented in its internal differentiations and in relation to individual wearers and their lives.

This led to categories created by scholarly discourse – whether consciously or unconsciously – of “primitive art” (non-Western), “folk art” (rural-“peasant”-European), as well as “applied” and “abstract”/”real” art. Non-European and rural European jewellery is often treated exclusively typologically, implicitly denying its individuality and artistic value. Moreover, traditional European jewellery was long regarded as a “cultural asset that had descended from the upper classes” and, just like non-European jewellery, was perceived as “simple”, i.e., less valuable, and artistically inferior.

On the other hand, the idea prevailed that there were “advanced cultures” – among them many European cultures – that were superior to other forms of human life. How deeply rooted this thinking is, can be seen – among other things – in the still difficult conceptualisations of topics in jewellery and textile research. In this exhibition and in my new book, I have provocatively included European region-specific jewellery under “ethnic jewellery”, although the term “ethnic” itself is very problematic.

How do you yourself deal with these differences and similarities?

For me personally, significant parallels and differences are equally interesting in my field of investigation. From the cultural anthropological perspective, it is ultimately about cultural metastructures, be it in a functional, structuralist and/or cultural materialistic sense.

Beyond that, I do try, like all curators, to make the object speak and to make people, especially the women who wore the jewellery, visible. How did they manage their lives?  What structures did they live in? What were their realities like? I often dream that all the wearers and owners of the exhibited objects could be present at the vernissage to tell their personal stories.

The cross-cultural and cross-epochal approach is laborious. On the one hand, time periods in a region are to be researched and presented correctly. On the other hand, the overarching theme has to serve as a guide through entire worlds. It is like commuting between a detailed and an overview view and, figuratively speaking, quickly leads to a loss of “depth of field”.

It takes a good network of specialists, a lot of literature, many databases, and a lot of time. I dream of a large digital archive on traditional costumes and jewellery worldwide, preferably with every comparative object that has ever been documented, the one virtual meta-reference collection, so to speak. The first ethno-mathematical studies on pattern analysis in textiles already exist. Having been involved in the development of health economic meta-analyses myself, this idea fascinates me, but the implementation is methodologically and financially very costly.

The young generation of many countries that were traditionally “researched” in the Eurocentric discourse are now creating their own scientific discourses independent of the Western scientific hegemonic claim. Communities are writing their own history, and this will lead to new insights and discourses. In my new book, I try to let the people who work with and wear traditional costumes, speak for themselves. My vision is the same for “non-Western” countries: research that writes the respective history “from the inside out”, i. e. together with or from within the cultural communities. This requires more trained “cultural native speakers” as scholars, financial resources, and an openness of international discourse.

In this sense, the present exhibition can only outline some topics, give impulses, and perhaps create stimuli for further research.

How do you decide what to show and what to leave out?

The selection of objects is a lengthy process, especially since each selection creates bias, but, on the other hand, it is also necessary for the presentation of the main theme. For me, a multitude of pieces does not devalue the single object, because each element is part of a big puzzle. I like to show many different contrasting pieces to arouse curiosity. At the same time, I have also selected groups of comparative objects in some places to show series of development, local variations in form, or individual variations of a “type of object”. The currently popular reduction to “top objects” visually enhances the value attributed to things. At the same time, this may distort the representation of the original context, especially in the case of objects of everyday use also shown here. For example, the traditional costume of a single woman often included numerous outfits at the same time. I show this “pars pro toto”, because of the lack of space, partly on the bonnets. Likewise, internal variation and individuality only become visible, when comparing several objects of one genre. For example, in the case of the well-known Schwälmer Betzel (caps), one was never exactly like the other.

It would take an entire museum to outline the jewellery regions and traditions of a country like Yemen. Here, the selection is particularly difficult. Thus, I chose objects from many parts of the country – important, rare, but also widespread pieces – to give as comprehensive an impression as possible.

The title is Splendour and Shine in the Flow of Time: what is the exhibition about? What will visitors see?

On the “classical” themes of “life course” and “cultural change”, the exhibition shows over 30 traditional costumes and more than 500 jewellery objects from over 50 countries worldwide in four halls. Small regional focal points are Lower Saxony, Franconia, Romania, the Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula, and headdresses from German-speaking regions of traditional costume. Festive, and everyday jewellery, and mainly festive costumes are shown. Another room shows photographic studies by Markus Bullik on the theme “In the face of traditional costume”. Both the changes in traditional costume and jewellery in the course of an individual’s life and the change in traditions across generations, through technological and cultural change, flight, displacement and migration, processes of exchange and appropriation are topics that are presented.

In what way is this different from the exhibition of almost the same name in Liechtenstein in 2020?

The exhibition “Splendor and Shine in the River of Time” at the Liechtenstein National Museum in 2020 was oriented towards the life cycle of the individual, from the cradle to the grave. About half of the objects shown there, will also be shown in Zons in two halls, with some changes and additions to the classic theme of the life course. Many of the objects with a close regional connection to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the neighbouring regions will not be on display in Zons. Instead, we are now exhibiting regional clothing and jewellery on topics of cultural change that have not been shown before, which has also resulted in a new, second catalogue, containing again more than 400 illustrations. Because of its focus on cultural change, the new exhibition in Zons is therefore called “Splendour and Shine in the Flow of Time”.

What is the main goal of this exhibition for you? What would you like visitors to remember?

Both glimpses into the world as well as glimpses into the past are worthwhile, not only from an aesthetic point of view.

“Phylogenetically proven orders” such as age classification and kinship systems, religious structures, etc., have been accompanying humanity from the very beginning. One problem of postmodernity, with all its freedoms, is fragmentation; identities, relationships and loyalties appear to be freely selectable; age classes are dissolving, religious reference systems are disappearing, and orders are disintegrating. In a sense, “social entropy” is increasing, which is an overload for many people. In this sense, many cultures are becoming deficient in the context of globalisation. A look into the past makes man-made systems of order – for better or worse – visible on the subject of clothing and jewellery.

Many regional traditions are dying out, their “language”, and furthermore, their craft techniques are being lost. Today, in contrast to earlier times, we have more opportunities to preserve artifacts today, and like our predecessors, we still have the task of documenting them for posterity. In addition, regional clothing and jewellery offer many ideas for highly topical issues such as sustainability, identity, interculturality, and others. Beyond all theories, they remain fascinating objects of art in their time-defying beauty, simply splendour beyond all transience.

I would be delighted if the colourfulness, diversity, and uniqueness of traditional forms of clothing and jewellery would fascinate visitors, spark curiosity, and contribute to openness and mutual appreciation in a multicultural world.

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Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.

A wider world

A wider world

by | Museums & Exhibitions

new display

A Wider World

The Jewellery Museum in Pforzheim, Germany, houses a significant collection of non-Western jewellery. The collection was assembled by Eva and Peter Herion, and I have had the good fortune of seeing it a couple of years ago. In March 2023, the redesigned exhibition has opened and I have been in touch with Isabel Schmidt-Mappes of the museum to learn about the concepts behind the new exposition. It is my great pleasure to present you with this guest contribution by the Jewellery Museum: a view on intertwined histories, cultural contacts and cultural contexts. As a jewellery researcher, I can’t stress the importance of the context of jewellery enough, and so this redesigned exhibition is exciting!

What Is Jewellery? Criss-cross through the Jewellery Museum’s collections

What looks like an octagon formed by two intersecting squares is in fact a small box complemented by triangles on the sides. Made of silver set with turquoise, it is called Ga’u, and was created in Lhasa in the 20th century (see the photo below, shown on the left, photo Petra Jaschke/Schmuckmuseum). It is juxtaposed with a blue brooch of comparable size, crafted from blue steel mesh and silver by Than Truc Nguyen in Berlin in 2012 (shown on the right, photo Schmuckmuseum). The two objects share similarities in colour and form: both are a shade of blue, and they are based on geometrical shapes. However, there is an essential difference between them. The former is an amulet case, originally worn by Tibetan noblewomen to both ward off evil and conjure up protective spirits, whereas the latter is a piece of contemporary jewellery, whose moiré effect plays with appearance and reality, resembling a glittering gemstone when the incident light is at a certain angle. This pairing may be surprisingly unusual, but it invites visitors to take the time to get a feel for the objects’ individual character. »We’re showcasing the objects on the basis of universal design principles,« says Cornelie Holzach, the museum’s Director. Commonalities and differences – across putative boundaries in terms of culture, region or era – are the focus of the new presentation of the Herion bequest.

Jewellery in a wider scope

The ethnographic Eva and Peter Herion-collection had originally been given to the Jewellery Museum as a permanent loan, and has meanwhile passed into the museum’s ownership. When the remodelled museum opened in 2006, parts of the Herion collection were set up with a special focus on Africa and Asia. Conceived as a semi-permanent exhibition back then, it is now being redesigned on the basis of a fundamentally new approach. The discussion held in recent years about our approach to ethnographic artefacts requires a new view of non-European jewellery. Here it is essential to see the objects from different perspectives. Their cultural and historical context is as important as the artistic aspirations involved, and they also need to be regarded within the framework of global jewellery history. Objects from all of the museum’s collections, whether from the historical, the modern or the ethnographic collection, will therefore be exhibited in a manner that allows them to enter into dialogue with each other. »We’ll no longer be showing the ethnographic artefacts in the context assigned to them for a long time, i.e. as something foreign that stands in contrast to our Western culture. Instead, we’ll be displaying them subsumed under the overarching theme of ‘The phenomenon of jewellery’, highlighting that there is something innately human about jewellery,« explains the jewellery expert. This will give visitors an opportunity to immerse themselves in a wide variety of jewellery in a presentation that has not been put together according to previously accepted criteria, allowing them to discover diverse new perspectives or even come up with their own.

Contextualising instead of categorizing

The redesigned exhibition’s rich diversity of objects piques visitors’ curiosity to explore it. They are drawn into the room by what looks like a display case in a cabinet of curiosities in the centre, brimming with a motley assortment of intriguing artefacts. The exhibits in the showcases along the walls are contextualised culturally, geographically and historically. They are displayed according to aesthetic, functional or technical aspects on the basis of fundamental criteria like form and material, as well as corresponding sub-criteria, such as surface design and colour, for example. Visitors will need to take a closer look to become aware of these aspects, and there will be moments of surprise, or of pausing and pondering to avoid categorising a piece prematurely.

The display case devoted to the colour red, for example, shows a breast ornament: a crescent-shaped piece of mother-of-pearl, coloured with redwood pigment (in the photo above, shown to the left, photo by Petra Jaschke/Schmuckmuseum). It is called Kina, and was created by the Mendi people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea in the 20th century. The same showcase displays a Nabataean-Hellenistic lunula pendant, which is also shaped like a half moon, and was crafted from gold and garnets in the second to first centuries BCE (shown to the right, photo by Neck Bürgin/Schmuckmuseum). Both objects are similar in colour and shape but very different in terms of their meaning, origin, materials and the crafting technique involved, as visitors can read in accompanying texts. The mother-of-pearl ornament is a coveted barter item, and is worn on the breast at special occasions involving dances. The brighter the red colour the higher the piece’s value. This is why the shells are often painted. Lunula pendants, in contrast, were popular both during the New Kingdom in Egypt and the Hellenistic period, and were worn as amulets to ward off evil.

This exhibition concept is underscored by the room’s design: a network of lines criss-crossing the display cases shows connections between individual objects, as well as points of intersection. The underlying idea runs like a leitmotif throughout the other rooms of the permanent exhibition because ethnographic jewellery will be displayed in several showcases there as well. Thus, this newly designed exhibition space has an additional function: it introduces visitors to the theme of jewellery and self-ornamentation.

The aim of presenting the Herion collection in dialogue with the museum’s historical and modern collections is quite in line with the collectors’ ideas. The Pforzheim-based couple Eva and Peter Herion, who acquired a wide variety of adornments on their travels – mainly to Africa and Asia – between 1970 and 2006, were fascinated by jewellery in all its diversity. Peter Herion was an entrepreneur, goldsmith and artist, and both had a strong interest in non-European cultures and their artworks.

A starting point for exploration

Also, labels with questions, such as »wearable or not?«, »valuable or not?« or »heavy or lightweight?«, for example, are attached to individual display cases in the ethnographic collection. This detail expresses the exhibition makers’ desire to offer scope for experimentation and participation. Cornelie Holzach comments: »We’ll have more questions than answers, and we want to find answers to these questions with the help of experts, as well as non-specialists.« The new presentation is not a definitive exhibition format but a starting point for further exploring the aspects concerned and introducing them into public discourse.

In addition to the analogue exhibition, there will be a digital platform allowing visitors to approach the objects in their own individual way. Those who want to can embark on a journey around the world or through different eras in the shape of an avatar, or explore each of the »curiosities« separately. Moreover, detailed views and descriptions enable visitors to arrange groupings according to their own criteria, or to have a timeline created for their selection.

The new presentation has been conceived and developed by the entire team of the Jewellery Museum in collaboration with the ethnologist Dr. Andreas Volz and the art historian Dr. Martina Eberspächer. Exhibition design by the interior designer Cornelia Wehle, graphic design by L2M3 Kommunikationsdesign, digital applications by 2av.

[English translation: Sabine Goodman]

— Practical details

Opening hours: Tue–Sun and holidays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve)

Admission to the permanent exhibition € 4.50, reduced price € 2.50, € 6 incl. a visit to the Technical Museum of Pforzheim’s Jewellery and Watchmaking Industries, free admission for children no older than 14 and for holders of a Museums-Pass-Musées

Guided tours for groups by appointment

Public guided tours through the permanent exhibition Sun 3 p.m., € 6.50, reduced price € 4.50 Partners: Pforzheimer Zeitung and SWR2

For more information, please visit http://www.schmuckmuseum.de

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.

Lover’s Eyes

Lover’s Eyes

by | Ancient jewellery, Reviews

miniature art

Lover’s Eyes

The eye has been a powerful motif since the earliest pieces of adornment were created. It protects the wearer and features in either stylized or natural form. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, a new category was added to this millennia-old repertoire: miniature portraits of the eye of an actual person, so-called ‘Lover’s Eyes’. The book ‘Lover’s Eyes’ presents a superb private collection of these tiny masterpieces.

‘Lover’s Eyes’ is the name given to these jewels, as a love story is what first comes to mind. That is because the most famous commissioner of such a portrait was the Prince of Wales, later to be King George IV: he sent a jewel with an image of his eye to his beloved Maria Fitzherbert. They married secretly and she commissioned a similar portrait for him to carry with him at all times. Over the years, they exchanged several of these jewels, and of the 10 pieces Maria had had created for him, nine were returned to her after his death – the 10th piece is still with him following his final wishes. But there is much more to them than secret love interests, and that is what makes this book such a wonderful read.

More than 130 eye-jewels from the collection of Nan and David Skier are presented in this book. The book is based on the exhibition catalogue that appeared in 2012 alongside the exhibition ‘The Look of Love’ in the Birmingham Museum of Art, but has now significantly been updated, expanded with four new chapters and additional jewellery pieces. The new chapters open up a treasure of history and background details against which to interpret these pieces.

One of these new essays deals with the settings of these portraits. The eye miniatures themselves are exquisite, but their setting adds to their meaning. In the spirit of Georgian expression, gemstones formed a language as well. The essay ‘Symbol and Sentiment’ explores these added capacities. I found it fascinating to learn that in this timeframe, too, coral was highly valued because of its protective capacities, and as the author writes it is indeed interesting to wonder if a coral setting of an eye miniature protects the person wearing the piece or the person depicted in the piece, or perhaps both (p. 48). Garnets, as a symbol of friendship, may indicate a piece was intended as gift to a close friend rather than to a lover, while pearl points more to love, and so the variety of gemstones present in eye miniatures is discussed.

That same added visual language is also present in the flowers depicted, which is explored in the essay on Floriography. Here, we learn about the history of floral symbolism in England. As the author remarks, there are relatively few pieces that combine floral motifs with eyes (p. 71), which is noteworthy for such a longstanding tradition. I could not help but wonder if the absence of floral language is informative in itself and tells us a little about how these eye portraits were perceived. Flowers communicate virtues and values about a person depicted to the onlooker. The eye jewellery however, while publicly worn, balances on the threshold between private and public: it combines presence with absence, identity with anonymity: could it be the use of added messages was mostly refrained from, so as to not give away too much to the onlooker? It’s just a thought, but this and other topics show how these eye portraits remain enigmatic objects in certain respects. Another tradition that is very much present in eye miniatures is the use of hairwork, as present in the second half of the essay on Symbol and Sentiment. These are not only to be understood as mourning or memorial jewellery – the gifting of hairlocks also occurred among friends and relatives.

The advent of photography is one of the factors that contributed to the dwindling popularity of eye miniatures. Yet, they never disappeared completely, as the last essays ‘Fake or Fashion and ‘Love never Dies’ explore. Eye jewellery was again popular in the late 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century, but these miniatures were no longer portraits of actual persons. The book walks us through the differences and development of styles, into the area of falsifications. As with all fakes, forgers are increasingly ingenious, and I found the section on methods to reveal fakes very enlightening: I would not be able to discern an authentic piece from a fake with the naked eye (no pun intended), but I found the discussion very helpful, also in its regard of what actually constitutes a fake. After all, eye miniatures continue to be made today: the exhibition in 2012 itself sparked another round of interest in these objects and inspired new creations reflecting our own timeframe. Here, the original Lover’s Eyes merge with older forms and meaning of eye depictions. The Eye of Time as designed by Dalí for example (p. 105) recalls both eye jewellery from the Mediterranean in its shape as the lover’s eyes in the addition of a teardrop, and the large eyes painted on the cassette ceiling of Blenheim Palace mix the other way around: their general shape is reminiscent of the watchful eye, but they are related to the eye jewellery miniatures in their depiction of the actual eyes of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (p. 103).

Jewellery, especially talismanic jewellery, tells us a lot about its wearer. This category of jewellery does even more so, as it captures traits of actual persons. They speak of love and loss, and as such hold incredibly personal stories that we may never know in detail. I loved the amount of detail this book provides to place these pieces in context: the other imagery of the time, such as the language of gemstones and flowers or their use as sentimental jewellery. The essays on the ‘Artist’s Eye’ and ‘The Intimate Gaze’ on Richard Cosway, who painted the eye miniatures for the Prince of Wales, shed light on the practical sides of this artistic genre – like the prince ordering, but rarely if ever actually paying.

The design of the book itself reminds me of a jewellery cassette: square and, upon careful opening, filled with wonderfully photographed pieces. The catalogue takes up about half of the book and showcases each piece against a dark background: I found it particularly helpful that the text consistently refers to catalogue entries, which makes for easy comparison. Many of the catalogue entries are discussed in detail in the main text, and where needed, extra information is added in the catalogue section. The book is referenced throughout with endnotes with each essay – don’t miss out on the notes, they contain even more fascinating tidbits!

This is a very complete, accessible overview of one of the most intriguing jewellery types of the last centuries, that should definitely be on the shelf of anyone interested in Georgian and Victorian jewellery, sentimental jewellery or European jewellery!

Lover’s Eyes. Eye miniatures from the Skier collection. Edited by Elle Sushan. Giles Art Books, 2021. 280 pages, full colour. In English

Available with the publisher and online stores such as Amazon.

The book was gifted as advance reading copy by the publisher

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Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.

Numerology in jewellery

Numerology in jewellery

by | Magic & Amulets

magic of numbers

Numerology in jewellery from the Middle East

Updated November 21, 2025

Numerology and jewellery: an introduction to numbers in adornment

Numerology—the belief that numbers carry symbolic meaning—has played a subtle yet powerful role in jewellery design across the Middle East and North Africa. In this post, I explore how numbers like three, five and seven are woven into the forms of adornment.

These are not decorative choices alone: they reflect magical thinking, protection, and deeply held cultural associations. From dangling elements arranged in odd-numbered clusters to elements alluding to the heavens, numerology has left its imprint on the very structure of traditional jewellery.

Odd and even: why uneven counts matter in Middle Eastern jewellery

That visualization of numerology starts with the difference between even and uneven numbers. Why is there often an uneven number of dangles on a pendant, for example? In jewellery, symmetry and evenness are preferably avoided. Usually, the number of bells and dangles on a particular pendant or amulet will be uneven, which is believed to be a way of warding off the evil eye.

In some regions, an even number is considered to be outright dangerous as the symmetric perfection of an even number will, it is believed, attract the evil eye. Click here to read more about the evil eye in jewellery.

The power of three: triads, triplets and jewellery symbolism

Three is considered to denote the sacred cycle of life (birth, existence and death) and spells are often recited three times.

Many festivities last for three days to enhance their efficacy and good fortune, and triangles, having three sides, are considered a powerful charm. Three is also the old conjunction of man, woman and child and as such was an important number in Antiquity.

Many deities were grouped into trinities or triads, and one deity could also be venerated in three forms. Those three forms would be based on the cycle of life and death, and usually are some manifestation of beginning, middle and end.

In jewellery, three-sided symbols or forms made of three’s are said to have great power: the six-pointed star of hexagram is a double triangle, for example. The threefold repetition of decorative motifs is another way to include the power of this number in jewellery.

Five and the khamsa: the number 5 in amulets and protection

Five is the number most commonly used in jewellery, and some cultures consider the fifth day of the week, Thursday, to be sacred, believing that anything undertaken on this day has more chance of success than activities undertaken on other days of the week.

That is because the number five is associated with the five pillars of Islam, the five fingers of the hand and the five daily prayers.

Five also has a profound cosmic meaning: it visualizes humankind in the center of the four cardinal directions, and as such is a beautiful metaphor for Creation itself.

In jewellery design, five becomes apparent through the arranging of elements in groups of five, or the number of dangles underneath pendants.

And of course it manifests in the khamsa: click here to read more about the powers and history of the khamsa!

Seven and the starry sky: celestial numbering in jewellery design

Seven has been symbolically meaningful since ancient Egypt, where the goddess Isis, renowned for her magical powers, is surrounded by seven scorpions.

Many shrines in North Africa and Southwest Asia need to be circumambulated seven times. This also holds true for the Kaaba in Mecca, which pilgrims circle seven times counterclockwise.

Seven has a cosmic meaning as well: in Antiquity, the seven visible planets were an important element of astronomy and astrology. Click here to read more about astrology in jewellery.

How numerology operates in Middle Eastern jewellery design

All these numbers are repeatedly worked into general jewellery decoration as well, and that is how numerology influences jewellery design. [1] Take a moment to closely at your favourite piece of jewellery. Count its dangles, observe its design: do you notice a motif often occurs in three’s, five’s or seven’s?

Triangles with three points, squares with four points, crosses with five points (the intersection is seen as a point as well), and their combinations, all provide geometrical decorations generally designed to ward off evil.

When actual, written numbers are worked into a magic square, they combine their powers into an effective amulet tailored for the person wearing it.

Understanding jewellery through numbers: a closing reflection

So you see, the arrangement of elements in jewellery may look general, and even be standardized patterning, but it finds its origin in the highly meaningful rendition of numbers.

The use of numerology in jewellery offers a key to understanding how form and meaning intertwine in traditional adornment of the Middle East and North Africa. Numbers such as three, five and seven are embedded in amulets, pendants and jewellery structures—not simply as decoration, but as carriers of cultural logic, ritual purpose and protective power. For collectors, museum curators or anyone drawn to the material culture of the region, recognising these numeric patterns opens a richer appreciation of both jewellery and the societies that produced it.

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Where can I learn more about symbolism in jewellery design?

Six ways how magic influences jewellery design: want to know how? Download your free e-book on amulets here!

Other jewellery & magic blogs? Browse them all here!

Find out more about the magic of numbers in the e-course on Amulets and Magic in Jewellery!

This post is based on the chapter ‘The Evil Eye and Other Problems’ in my book Desert Silver.

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References

[1] Westermarck, E, 1904. The magic origin of Moorish designs, in: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol 34

Lead image has been created adapting works from The British Libary and HmmlOrientalia.

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The Bedouin Silver Jewellery Blog: Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery, and obtained her PhD at Leiden University on jewellery, informal ritual and collections. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only. Sigrid strongly believes in accessibility of knowledge, and aims to provide reliable and trustworthy content: that’s why the Bedouin Silver blog provides references and citations.

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Personal Adornment

Personal Adornment

by | Reviews

the construction of identity

Personal Adornment

When you have been reading other articles on this blog, you know personal adornment as a historic source is one of my main research interests. Who are we? Who do we want to be? Who do we definitely want to disassociate ourselves from? How do we want others to perceive us? We use our personal appearance to create our personal and group identity in many ways, but it creates who we are in as many ways. And it always has, as becomes more and more clear of studies into personal adornment in the past. Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity presents a superb overview of the many possibilities that jewellery research in an archaeological context has to offer. While I speak of ‘jewellery’, the book deals with bodily adornment in the widest sense.

First, let me walk you through the book. This is a series of papers resulting from a conference session, and reading them made me wish from the first page I had had the opportunity to attend that conference! Eight chapters discuss case studies from across the globe and from varying timeframes, and a thorough introduction at the beginning and a concluding chapter at the end bookend these, providing the necessary cohesion between the chapters. On the very first page of text, which is really only just the acknowledgements, the editor Hannah V. Matson expresses her hope that readers ‘will contemplate how items of bodily adornment may serve not as nonutilitarian items of wealth or decoration, nor as symbols or materializations of underlying social relations and categories, but as active and key components in the constitution of identity.’ (p. v): if that does not make one want to dive fully into the pages ahead, I don’t know what does!

So, what to expect in this volume? You will find the first chapter very useful in its comprehensive presentation and discussion of the evolving views in archaeology when it comes to personal adornment. Jewellery is (for the most part) no longer treated as ‘Look, lots of jewellery! This must be a princess!’, but as a very relevant source that ties in with virtually every aspect of past worlds we are trying to understand. Jewellery actively constructs identity, and in a way, reality. Let me illustrate that briefly by means of another recent study, by Karsten Wentink, on prehistoric grave goods including personal adornment. He argues that the deceased were buried with objects that reflected a world of travel and all the social codes that went with that: drinking beer together, extending hospitality, being a gracious guest by sharing stories of places far and wide…Apparently, they expected this for their final journey as well, and personal adornment buried with them was making that a reality for the afterlife.

What I found particularly interesting in Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity was the section on personal adornment and social memory. Just like ornaments can be actively creating reality, they can commemorate and even re-create a past, and as such are incredibly powerful parts of our lives. Mette Langbroek touches upon this aspect of medieval beads as well in her chapter Beads from Dorestad in the volume Dorestad and its networks. Communities, Contact and Conflict in Early Medieval Europe, and reading a more elaborate introduction in the theoretical underpinnings of personal adornment and its mnemonic modalities through which people (in any timeframe) negate their present was absolutely enriching.

This entire book is filled with food for thought, as you can tell by the number of sticky notes in the above image of the book. We see how in the early Neolithic a shared use of ornamentation leads to new group identities in which hunter-gatherers and farmers interact (paper by Perlès), how dress and language both form deep expressions of identity that disappear together from the record (Olko), how objects of adornment can be group property instead of individual property (Prociuk, which reminded me strongly of how certain healing beads with the Bedouin in southern Palestine are group property as well), the changes in early Medieval society that are not just reflected in brooch types, but actually instigated by them (Glørstad), and many other case studies of jewellery research at its best. This is exactly how one would like to see jewellery studies approached: as an integral part of and source about the past, not just as adornment.

This is obviously very much an academic book, but very well readable due to its clarity of writing (the paper by Cifarelli is the most jargon-heavy in its theoretical approach at times), and the introductory and final chapters both do a great deal to integrate all the fascinating research in between into a coherent framework. Having read this book, you will have a clear and up to date overview of the deep possibilities jewellery research has to offer: not just for archaeological pieces, but for any type of personal adornment. If you are a curator or academic researcher in the field of personal adornment, this is simply a must-read, and if you love jewellery and your interest in its capacities beyond the ornamental has been piqued, this is a great introduction into the length and width of jewellery as a research field!

Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity. A Global Archaeological Perspective (2021). Edited by Hannah V. Matson.

224 pp, b&w with 10 colour plates, in English.

Available with the publisher Oxbow Books and in bookstores (offline and online) worldwide.

The book was gifted as review copy by the publisher.

More books on personal adornment and archaeology? Find dozens of titles here!

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Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.