When the past is reimagined: how ancient jewellery got a makeover

When the past is reimagined: how ancient jewellery got a makeover

by | Opinion

when the past is reimagined

How ancient jewellery got a makeover

Published January 28, 2026

Jewellery has always had a powerful role in connecting us to the past. But what if the jewellery we see in museum displays isn’t quite as ancient as we’re led to believe? Or what if jewellery made just a century ago is mistaken for something millennia older? It happens more often than you’d think.

In this blog, I’ll introduce my new research project Jewellery Between Worlds, that I conduct as Visiting Research Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East at Leiden University.

In this project, I take a closer look at how the boundaries between archaeology and ethnography blurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and how that blurry line continues to shape our understanding of ancient Southwest Asia. I’ll explore how ancient jewellery has been altered, how more recent jewellery has been mislabelled, and how museum displays influence what we think the past looked like.

Jewellery that time-travelled…the wrong way

Let’s start with the ancient pieces themselves. Many items labelled as ancient in museum collections were never actually excavated in controlled digs. Instead, they made their way into collections through the antiquities trade (sometimes legally, more often not) and without any archaeological context.

And that’s where the fun (or frustration, depending on how you look at it) begins.

People of the 19th and early 20th centuries often had strong ideas about what jewellery should look like. So ancient beads and pendants were frequently restrung into contemporary fashion statements. A 1920s-style flapper necklace made from Egyptian antiquities—reassembled to suit Jazz Age tastes. Or take the beaded necklaces from the tomb of Djehuty, now in Leiden: they were likely restrung shortly after excavation, without any real record of their original arrangement. You can see one of the necklaces in the image gallery below. One of the things I examine is if this was done by sellers, or by curators – or both.

Even on professional excavations themselves, jewellery wasn’t always recorded with care. Beads, in particular, were fragile and tricky to recover, because their stringing had long since disintegrated.

As a result, we’re often looking at reconstructions, at 19th or 20th century designs using ancient components – yet presented as ‘authentic’ ancient necklaces. Have a look at the two necklaces below: they are eerily similar in their design.

When 2oth century jewellery masquerades as ancient

The confusion runs both ways. Museum collections also hold pieces that are actually ethnographic (so, made in the 19th or early 20th century and used by local communities) but labelled as ancient.

That is because jewellery, for a very long time, has not been studied as historical source in its own right, but at best as accessory. What also isn’t helping, is that very often, museum curators were men.

The thing is that this misidentification doesn’t just muddle museum catalogues. It reshapes how we imagine the past, often with an unconscious bias: assuming that non-Western cultures don’t change much over time, and that what peasants wore in the 1900s must look more or less like what pharaohs wore thousands of years earlier. It’s an old trope, and one that has been remarkably persistent.

Dressing the ancient past in the present

Even today, our mental image of ancient Southwest Asia is still shaped by these missteps. People in movies, TV-shows or sometimes simply images set in the past, are only too often adorned with ethnographic pieces from very different periods and regions.

What interests me here are the different approaches to material relics of the past. The accuracy of a building can be checked against archaeological sources. The same goes for jewellery: there is a ton of evidence of what people wore in the past. But somehow, that rarely translates into reconstructions of that past.

And so 19th century ideas about both the past and contemporary cultures continue to persist in visualisations of the past – and that’s a dynamic I want to explore further in this project.

Jewellery Between Worlds – my new research project

Jewellery isn’t just beautiful—it’s a historical source. It tells stories of who wore it, when, and why.

But it also tells stories about us: the collectors, curators, and viewers who handle and interpret these pieces. When an ancient necklace is restrung into a flapper fashion statement, or when 19th-century jewellery is rebranded as ancient, we learn as much about modern tastes and assumptions as we do about the ancient world.

This entanglement of old and new, fact and fashion, archaeology and ethnography, is part of the story of both archaeology and ethnography about a century ago. I think it’s high time we start to disentangle those views: if we don’t, it becomes a flaw in the system.

In 2026, I’ll be diving into storerooms and archives, to see if I can shed more light on how the the past and present came to be mixed up, and what we can do to educate both ourselves and the general public.

And finally: this is a self-funded position, meaning one I’m not getting paid for.  I think it’s important anyway, so I’m embarking on it regardless. If you feel like supporting me in this journey in other ways than by enrolling in a course, you can do so through this link – thank you!

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The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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.

This blog is free: if you’d like to support independent, self-funded research, please consider enrolling in a course or a jewellery talk, or donate here directly.

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The Louvre Jewellery Heist: what we’re really losing when jewels are stolen

The Louvre Jewellery Heist: what we’re really losing when jewels are stolen

by | Opinion

Theft of historic jewellery

The Louvre Jewellery Heist: what we’re really losing when jewels are stolen

Published October 22, 2025

It’s like a plot straight out of Ocean’s Eleven: one of the most famous museums in the world, the Louvre in Paris, gets robbed in broad daylight of dazzling jewellery. For me, as an archaeologist and jewellery historian, 2025 is turning out to be quite a disconcerting year: this is not the first high-profile jewellery heist, and it’s not all tiaras and diamond parures — irreplaceable archaeological artefacts are still missing, too. So, let’s look beyond the daring movie plots to what is really lost — and that is much more than just jewels.

The Louvre Jewellery Heist: a cultural loss beyond value

On 19 October 2025, four thieves disguised as construction workers entered the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre through a maintenance lift and smashed their way into display cases.

In just under seven minutes, they stole eight pieces of historic jewellery, including items once belonging to Empress Eugénie, Queen Hortense, and Empress Marie-Louise.

Each of these pieces was a link to a moment in France’s royal past. The stolen items formed part of France’s national crown jewel collection. The museum emphasised that the real loss is not financial, but cultural and historical. Their theft severs those historical links I just mentioned. But the estimated financial value is still what you’ll find in most news items.

The Drents Museum robbery and the Dacian gold of Romania

Like I said, 2025 is a very disconcerting year. It began with another devastating loss: on January 25, the Drents Museum in Assen, the Netherlands, was robbed of the Dacian gold of Romania — unique archaeological jewellery loaned for a temporary exhibition.

When artefacts like these are stolen, the break is not only in possession, but in continuity. They carried evidence of how societies valued adornment, craftsmanship, and trade — insights now vanished along with the jewellery itself.

Its true worth lay in what it represented: a tangible connection to Romania’s ancient past and cultural identity. One of the stolen pieces, a stunning gold helmet, even features on the national banknotes – this is far more than treasure that has been taken.

Jewellery is a historical source, not just an ornament

You know my main conviction: jewellery is never just an object. It is a bearer of stories — about the person who wore it, the society that made it, the techniques used to craft it, and the routes through which it travelled. Jewellery is, in itself, a historical source.

And that is not just because of the links with historic events, such as France’s jewels. When jewellery is melted or broken apart, we lose for example the opportunity to gain technological insights.

Did you know that studying metalwork, alloys, settings, and components shares an incredible amount of insights? It tells us about trade contacts, developing techniques, social stratigraphy within a community, economic booms or crises… And there’s so much more, down to the ways a piece of jewellery was dangling, swaying, or pinned onto fabric. Can’t research that when the piece is gone.

Even if an item resurfaces, the web of relationships that made it historically meaningful is probably damaged, or worse, gone.

Melted history: how high gold prices threaten jewellery

These heists starkly illustrate another loss: the reduction of jewellery to its bullion value. I’ve argued before that jewellery is more than the worth of its components – see more about that here.

Thieves – and the networks they feed – increasingly treat centuries-old goldwork as raw material. This year’s record-high gold prices only add to that risk. In October 2025, gold briefly topped $4,000 per ounce. That’s a strong incentive to convert historically significant jewellery into meltable assets.

When thieves target archaeological artefacts, like the Dacian gold bracelets stolen in the Drents Museum heist, they are often stolen for their material worth, and the headlines in the news often seem to focus on that, too. It seems to be the first reaction – what was it worth?

And even then, these jewels are not stolen for resale on the art market. Because, think of it: who is going to buy that Dacian bracelet or that sapphire parure? These things are impossible to fence off.

So, what do we often see happening? Destruction. In search of financial value, stolen jewellery ends up melted down, broken apart, stones altered…and gone is your historic source.

The vanishing record: why so little historical jewellery survives

And that brings me to a lesser-discussed but super important aspect: there is not that much historical jewellery to begin with. Jewellery heritage survives selectively.

For example, those jewels stolen from the Louvre are among the few that remain of France’s turbulent royal past: the majority was already destroyed during past events.

And the further we travel back in time, the scarcer jewellery becomes: the Bronze Age artefacts stolen from St. Fagans in the UK, also in 2025, represent unique pieces of prehistoric Welsh gold jewellery – there aren’t that many others. With these pieces gone, we lose sight of a significant part of prehistory.

Heists and theft: what’s really at stake is losing history, not just objects

As a jewellery historian, my greatest concern is not just about spectacular thefts, but about the long-term loss of knowledge. We lose voices from history.

Obviously, a heist like in Paris, Assen or St Fagans shocks me: I simply cannot believe anyone would take cultural heritage from the public to serve their own benefit and profit. It’s maddening. It hurts. A jewellery theft of this magnitude sends shockwaves through a community as it is robbed of its tangible connection with history.

So, while news outlets highlight what was stolen, I’m trying to grasp the enormity of what has been lost – and can only hope the pieces will be recovered.

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The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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.

This blog is free: if you’d like to support independent research, please consider enrolling in a course or a jewellery talk. The proceeds directly fund my research work: thank you so much for your support!

When jewellery is called museum quality — and when it’s not

When jewellery is called museum quality — and when it’s not

by | Opinion

Rethinking jewellery’s worth

When jewellery is called museum quality – and when it’s not

Published September 11, 2025

The other day, I received an email from someone saying they had purchased a museum quality bracelet from the Middle East and wanted me to validate it. That’s not the first time I’ve heard someone describe jewellery as museum quality – sellers use the phrase too. But what does it really mean?

What people think ‘museum quality’ means

The email about the bracelet mentioned that a similar piece was in the collection of a large museum. Could I please confirm whether their bracelet had the same value? Behind this seemingly simple request is a set of common assumptions. When non-museum people use the label museum quality, they usually mean one of three things:

  1. There is a piece just like it in an actual museum collection;
  2. It’s very beautiful, undamaged, and, oddly, sometimes size matters too;
  3. It’s rare or unique – you will not find a comparable piece easily.

Put together, these often add up to a fourth meaning: expensive. If it’s museum quality, surely you’ll be willing to pay more for it.

To put it bluntly: in my view, the term museum quality, more often than not, is used mainly to add prestige for both sellers and buyers: ‘look what I managed to find!’ Maybe it could even play into the desire of collectors to share and show their pieces: what better way to acknowledge your excellent taste than to own a piece similar to one admired by thousands? Of course, it’s always nice to find a parallel in a museum, but does that mean your piece is exceptional?

The thing is that this has very little to do with how museums themselves think about jewellery – and why the question of the e-mailer is impossible to answer for me.

Examples of jewellery in museums: from plastic beads to diamonds

Let’s start with jewellery that is actually in museums. I’ll share two examples with you, which you can also see above: click to enlarge them.

A few years ago, I loaned a few strands of plastic eye-beads to our National Museum of Antiquities. They were literally airport purchases, you know the type – cheap, mass-produced bracelets and keychains.

Does being in a museum suddenly make them museum quality? Nope. Although they were mass-produced and of little material value, they were included in an exhibition on beads because they showed how an ancient symbol, the eye, continues into modern souvenir culture. They illustrated a particular storyline the museum wanted to tell.

Another case is the Zeeman diamond pendant, sold for €30 in 2025. One of these pendants now sits in Antwerp’s diamond museum DIVA. Clearly, a silver pendant with a tiny lab-grown diamond isn’t museum quality in the sense of rarity or luxury.

See more about that particular pendant here, it’s quite the story!

It’s hardly comparable to the diamond necklace of Marie-Antoinette that led to the French Revolution, to name but one famous example. But it is important as cultural evidence. It marks a shift in how diamonds are marketed and consumed, and that makes it valuable for a museum narrative – specifically the story that DIVA aims to research and share.

These examples, both cheap and mass produced items on display in a museum, show why assuming museum quality means ‘expensive’ or ‘rare’ can be misleading.

Parameters that define ‘museum quality’ jewellery

So, what does make a piece of jewellery museum quality? As I said above, the term is often misused in the market as a synonym for ‘exceptional’ or ‘expensive.’ But in reality, museum quality jewellery is defined by a set of parameters that relate to cultural, historical, and ethical significance. Museums decide what to collect based on their mission and research priorities. These are some of the key factors you could think of:

  • Cultural or historical significance – A piece may be important because it reflects social identity, ritual, or everyday life.
  • Representativeness – Museums often collect typical examples of a style or tradition, not just the unusual ones.
  • Rarity and survival – A fragile bead that has survived for centuries may be more important than a mass-produced gold bangle.
  • Condition – While good condition is preferred, damage can sometimes add meaning if it tells a historical story.
  • Contextual value – A piece may be collected because it contributes to a wider narrative.
  • Ethical considerations – Provenance matters more than ever. Museums increasingly reject objects of dubious origin, regardless of their other qualities. A piece of jewellery may be big and beautiful, or filling a lacuna in the collection, but if its provenance can’t be traced, museums will more and more decide to pass on it. Provenance matters, people, I can’t stress that enough!

Taken together, these parameters show that museum quality jewellery is about meaning, not money. Actually, what qualifies as significant for one museum may not even be considered for another.

What about aesthetics…?

But surely, you might think, a truly beautiful, well-preserved piece must be museum quality? Aesthetics do play a role, of course, especially for display. But beauty alone is never enough. It’s almost like real life here.

In fact, aesthetic appeal can be misleading. Some Turkmen jewellery in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has come under scrutiny because several pieces are suspected to have been created more recently, to satisfy collectors’ demand for something ‘museum quality’.

Those pieces have no parallels, no clear provenance that would explain their virtually pristine condition despite being over a century old, there are no old photographs, no historic sources. And…they’re unusually large compared to well-documented Turkmen jewellery of the same age. It needs more research, of course, but firm fact is that copies of traditional jewellery are increasingly sold as authentic, and, there it is again, as ‘museum quality’.

Misuse of the term ‘museum quality’

If you’ve ever browsed antique shops or online listings, you’ve probably seen the phrase museum quality splashed across descriptions every now and then. And for sure, that sounds impressive! It suggests that you’re buying something authentic, rare, and important.

But more often than not, it’s just marketing. Sellers use it in three main ways:

  • To push up the price – labelling a piece as museum quality can make it seem more valuable than it really is.
  • To imply authenticity – if a museum owns something similar, then surely this piece must also be genuine and significant… right?
  • To increase pressure on you to buy – you would not want to pass up that single opportunity to acquire something truly unique, would you?

As a buyer, you can protect yourself by treating museum quality as a red flag rather than a guarantee. It’s not a term used in museum cataloguing. It’s not an accepted standard in the jewellery trade. It’s marketing.

Just to be clear: that doesn’t mean the piece in front of you has no value! It may be exquisite, rare, or historically interesting, or all of the above. But those qualities deserve to be weighed against your personal collection preferences.

Let me just say this: I know of one dealership that has actual museum quality jewellery that makes my jaw drop whenever I visit. I could think of several museums where part of these collections would make for a superb addition. But take note: these dealers never use the term themselves, simply because they don’t need to: their visitors know what they’re looking at and whether that matches their collection preferences.

A piece of jewellery needs to be a right fit for a specific museum – slapping a general term on a random piece just does not make sense. There’s literally no need to loudly and visibly stress that something is ‘museum quality’ – the right museum will decide that for itself, and if their curators are any good, they will spot a right fit for their collection just as easily in a thrift shop as in a high-end gallery.

So, museum quality jewellery is not a universal standard. What one museum chooses to collect, another might not even consider. The term only makes sense when tied to a specific institution and purpose.

What does ‘museum quality’ really mean…?

So, what is museum quality jewellery? It’s not a universally acknowledged label, but a very specific thing. It considers provenance, cultural meaning, representativeness, and context. Museums collect jewellery because it tells human stories: of identity, of daily life, of tradition, and sometimes of global change.

When sellers use museum quality as a catchphrase, it often misleads buyers and blurs the difference between cultural significance and market value. But when we use the term carefully, it becomes a reminder that jewellery is more than material: it’s heritage, story, and identity.

So next time you see that phrase in an Ebay-description…Hold on for a second. Think. Ask questions. Dig deeper. What, exactly, is it about this piece that would make it suitable for a museum? And which museum would that be? And why? As always, it boils down to doing your own due diligence – so you’ll recognize that museum quality piece when it does cross your path!

 

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The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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.

When a €30 diamond crashes the system: rethinking jewellery’s worth

When a €30 diamond crashes the system: rethinking jewellery’s worth

by | European jewellery, Opinion

Rethinking jewellery’s worth

When a €30 diamond crashes the system

Updated October 4, 2025

Upheaval in the jewellery world! Last week, Dutch low-budget chain Zeeman released a lab-grown diamond pendant for just under 30 euros. Their claim, in a spin on De Beers’ ‘diamonds are forever’: diamonds are for everyone. This affordable, lab-grown diamond caused quite the stir: jewellery experts hastened to explain the difference between lab-grown and natural diamonds, lawsuits were filed, the Zeeman website crashed because of the number of people trying to get one of these. For me, as a jewellery historian, this is fascinating because of the underlying question: what is the value of jewellery, and who gets to decide it?

The Zeeman diamond pendant controversy

So, what is all the fuss about?

Zeeman is a Dutch, low-budget chain of stores, usually associated with cheap products and low incomes. Just to be clear: no shade to Zeeman, I used to work there as a teen to pay for my school books, and learned quite a lot there, too. It’s not, however, a store that people visit for leisurely shopping. And now, this of all stores releases an affordable diamond pendant… wait, what?

Here’s what they offered: a silver pendant set with a small, round brilliant cut diamond of about 0.10 carats, VS2 clarity, and D–F colour. The diamond is lab-grown, and the pendant was priced at €29.99. The ad was brilliant, too: starting out with sepia-hued casino luxury vibes, it then switched to behind the scenes where everyday people were seen enjoying diamonds. See it here (Dutch spoken, but the imagery says it all)

When the diamond pendant finally went online, thousands of people rushed to buy one. The website crashed under demand, and stock sold out within the hour. A budget retailer, usually associated with socks and cleaning cloths, suddenly had a runaway success with diamond jewellery – that’s in the same league as Meghan Markle’s As Ever sellouts (also: the price of two tins of As Ever flower sprinkles equals one diamond pendant – just so you get an idea).

The controversy, of course, didn’t lag far behind. A Dutch wholesaler, Gisser Jewels, filed a lawsuit against Zeeman, arguing that their advertising was misleading. Zeeman had compared its €29.99 pendant to ‘similar’ pieces sold for hundreds of euros, which competitors said was an unfair comparison. The case was settled and a rectification of the comparison statement issued.

But still, a pendant that cost less than dinner for two found itself at the heart of a very public debate on what jewellery is worth.

Are lab-grown diamonds less ‘real’ than natural diamonds?

One of the first questions raised was, of course, whether these diamonds are ‘real’. The answer is: yes, they are. Lab-grown diamonds are chemically and physically identical to those mined from the earth. They score the same on the Mohs hardness scale, have the same brilliance, and can even be graded in exactly the same way by gemmological institutes. They sparkle just as amazing in candlelight. The only difference is origin.

That difference does carry social and environmental weight. Mining has long been associated with ecological disruption and, in some regions, with labour exploitation and conflict financing. The term ‘blood diamonds’ says it all, wouldn’t you agree?

Lab-grown diamonds sidestep those issues, although they, too, come with their own footprint: the process of creating them costs insane amounts of energy. Still, many see them as a more transparent alternative, and certainly as a more affordable one.

What makes jewellery really valuable? Rethinking jewellery worth

This is where it gets interesting. Because, despite the rectification issued, much of jewellery marketing (actually, any marketing, when you think of it…) does rest on scarcity and exclusivity. Books like Aja Raden’s Stoned and documentaries like Nothing Lasts Forever peel back that history of how desire is created and maintained through careful control of supply and clever advertising. According to these sources, De Beers famously built the 20th-century diamond market on that very idea: diamonds were not inherently rare, but they were presented as such.

We tend to fall back on that way of looking at jewellery: by the worth of its materials alone. But as I wrote earlier, this is a very limited way of thinking about adornment. Jewellery is not just about price tags. It can be made of glass, shell, copper or plastic and still be ‘real’ because its value lies in meaning: in how it is worn, who gave it, what story it carries.

See that earlier blog here: what is real jewellery?

Zeeman’s diamond challenges two long-held assumptions: that diamonds are scarce, and that they must therefore be costly. If both of those are shaken, then what really gives jewellery its worth…?

When jewellery loses (or gains) value: a historical perspective

This isn’t the first time jewellery has faced a shift in how value is perceived. In the 19th century, for instance, jet and gutta-percha were introduced as substitutes for more expensive materials like onyx or tortoiseshell. They were mass-produced and affordable, and at the time, some dismissed them as cheap imitations. But today, Victorian mourning jewellery in jet is prized for its craftsmanship and historical significance – literally prized, as real jet is quite expensive.

Glass, too, has long been used in place of gemstones – sometimes to deceive, often simply to make beauty available to more people. We don’t consider Roman glass intaglios less valuable because they’re not carved in amethyst or garnet; instead, we treasure them for their artistry and survival – and because they tell us a lot about the society that produced them.

That also works the other way around; materials that were once expensive, but now so common we can’t even imagine them as anything else.

Changing jewellery value: aluminium

Take aluminium, for example. In the mid-19th century, this was considered a precious metal. I know, right…? Let that sink in for a moment.

Aluminium was difficult to extract and more valuable than gold. Gold earrings were set with tiny blobs of aluminium – a fashion-forward lady would be showing off the latest of the latest. The pair shown above (click to enlarge the image) must have been worth a small fortune. Napoleon III famously had a set of aluminium cutlery reserved for honoured guests, while less important ones dined with silver. Imagine doing that today!

It was only after mass production was made possible after 1886, that aluminium became a common industrial metal. Those earrings shown above were just about 25 years old at that time, and suffered the same fate as your previous iPhone: expensive on purchase, totally worthless a few years later. Today, they’re expensive again – not because of their material value, but because of their historical value.

Changing jewellery value: amethyst

And did you know amethyst long ranked alongside diamonds as a major gemstone? It was associated with royalty and the Church – until large deposits were discovered in Brazil, amethysts became readily available, and its status plummeted. You can now buy amethysts anywhere, from spiritual shops to your corner jwellery store.

Changing jewellery value: a historical constant

So, in other words, what we see now with lab-grown diamonds is not entirely new. Materials once considered second-rate can, over time, take on new layers of value as they become part of cultural history. And materials once rare and exotic lost their financial value after mass production made them accessible to a larger audience.

I’ve shown you just two examples above, but this ebbing and flowing of material value is a constant throughout history. Fancy types of flint were imported from faraway lands in prehistoric times, iron was a breathtakingly new material for Tutankhamun, glass knocked everyone’s socks off when it was first invented, pearls were super expensive and rare until Mr. Mikimoto invented culturing….the list goes on. Why should the value of diamonds be any different?

The diamond for everyone: what the Zeeman pendant reveals

The run on Zeeman’s webshop shows there is real demand for accessible diamonds. For many, the chance to gift or own a diamond was out of reach until now. And if jewellery is about meaning, about marking moments and relationships, then a €29.99 pendant can absolutely become an heirloom in its own right.

That is what fascinates me most: Zeeman has forced us to look straight at the assumptions of the jewellery trade. Scarcity, prestige, value – they are not fixed truths, but shifting ideas shaped by people, culture and time.

I must admit that as a historian, I quite enjoy how Zeeman stirs things up, holding a mirror up to the jewellery world – and yes, if a second batch is released, I’ll probably be queuing online with everyone else!

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References

See the diamond pendant itself here.

More on the lawsuit is here.

See more on the remarkable rise and fall of aluminium here.

The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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.

Please don’t cook with Cartier

Please don’t cook with Cartier

by | Opinion

With love, meghan

Please don’t cook with Cartier

Published September 5, 2025

First, I have a confession to make. I have watched With Love, Meghan. Both seasons, all episodes. Flower sprinkles and scented guest towels hold no secrets for me, and I have been making apple butter by the gallon this last week. But although the show is soothing, relaxing and comforting, there is one thing that makes me really, really anxious as a jewellery person. And that is, you guessed it: the jewellery. With more than my average annual income on her hands (chunky engagement ring with Botswana diamond and gold Cartier tank watch, just to name a few), Meghan happily kneads dough, moulds clay, rinses vegetables… while I watch in rising horror. Because here’s the truth: jewellery is not indestructible, and wearing it while cooking or cleaning can cause damage that even the most skilled conservators cannot always undo.

Why cooking in your jewellery can cause damage

Even pieces made of metal and gemstone – materials that feel solid and enduring – are surprisingly vulnerable to daily wear and tear. Gold, for example, is a relatively soft metal, especially in its higher karat forms. When you rub it against hard surfaces like countertops, or plunge it repeatedly into water, you’re encouraging surface scratches and slow erosion. Stones can loosen from their settings. Clasps weaken. Chains stretch. Prongs bend.

Wearing jewellery while cooking is especially risky. Think of all the small particles of flour, spices, or oils that can work their way into tiny crevices of a ring or a bracelet. Dough in particular is notoriously sticky and persistent – I’ve seen old rings with decades of residue built up beneath the bezel, hardened into something that looks like concrete.

Even washing vegetables can pose a risk. A moment of distraction, and a ring slips off under running water, vanishing into the sink drain before you even notice. I mean, it happened to the Romans: dozens of ring stones were found in the drainage pipes of a bath house in England.

There’s also the issue of sudden temperature changes. Heating and cooling can cause tiny cracks or stress points in certain stones.

Pearls can be dulled by exposure to vinegar or lemon juice, both common kitchen staples. If you’re marinating a salad with your hands, your pearls probably shouldn’t come along for the ride. Or actually, any jewellery.

Jewellery as heritage: why taking care of it matters

But apart from the technical reasons, there’s something deeper at stake here. Jewellery carries history. Even if it’s not antique, every piece becomes a witness to our lives – and not all events should leave their mark. When I see someone wearing an exquisite ring to mould clay, I don’t see luxury, I see loss: the slow withering of stories that could have lasted generations.

And it’s not just emotional sentiment. From a conservation perspective, unnecessary handling of jewellery is a real concern. Museums and collections across the world maintain strict protocols for handling historical jewellery. Gloves are worn not to protect the person, but to protect the piece – oils and acids in human skin can corrode metal, dull gemstones, and cause tarnish. Jewellery conservators avoid even touching stones unless necessary. We know from decades of experience how easily surface damage can accumulate, even when wear feels gentle or casual.

Even more, once damage is done, repair isn’t always straightforward. Restoring a ring that has lost its setting or replacing worn enamel is a skill in its own right – and one that often comes with compromises. Original details might be lost in the process, or replaced with modern materials that don’t quite match. In the world of historical jewellery, ‘untouched’ often carries more value than ‘restored’.

For contemporary jewellery, you might think that repair is easier – and often it is – but some designs, especially from luxury brands, are difficult to repair without sending them back to the maker. Repairs are not just pricey, they’re slow, and often restricted to authorised centres. Damage caused by misuse can even void warranties. Just saying.

A suggestion for With Love, Meghan

Of course, jewellery is meant to be worn. That’s the whole point of it, and one I advocate as well. It lives best when it is close to us, part of our daily rituals. But part of wearing it well, is understanding when not to. Jewellery doesn’t need to be treated like it’s made of spun glass, but neither should it be expected to survive a kitchen workout or a pottery class unscathed. I do wish we’d think twice before whisking cake batter in our grandmother’s engagement ring. It’s not a harmless choice: it’s slow damage, and professional jewellery care and preservation are sometimes as easy as taking your jewellery off at the right moment!

So next time you reach for the flour or the dish sponge, think twice before your jewellery joins in. Because caring for jewellery today means preserving its story for tomorrow.

Also, if I could offer a suggestion to the show: removing one’s jewellery before taking on any crafting or cooking goes a long way to elevating the everyday and lowering my heart rate . Thank you!

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The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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.

Jewellery and dress

Jewellery and dress

by | Opinion

Two fields of research

Jewellery and Dress

Published on July 26, 2024

Jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa is always part of a larger ensemble: it is linked closely to other elements of personal appearance such as clothing and body aesthetic. Often, it’s not even possible or even necessary to discern where jewellery ends and dress begins. I believe the two are too often presented as separate, while in many cases, they are created to fit together. And on the other hand, I also believe they are two distinct fields of research. So how does that work?

Jewellery and dress: a practical connection

Starting out with the most practical connection: that where jewellery is an integral part of dress. Many jewellery items are designed to fasten clothing or to keep textiles in place: they are as much part of one’s attire as zippers are. That is not limited to North Africa and Southwest Asia: many cultures around the world use an astounding amount of pins, hooks, clasps, and buttons. All of these can be beautifully decorated and some of them are really meant to catch our attention, like the huge toggle buttons worn on the island of Sardinia (Italy), for example.

And when that costume changes, its jewellery changes along with it or even disappears. Many jewellery items are no longer worn, because the costume they were an integral part of, has changed. That is a super logical domino-effect, but one that is not always acknowledged.

Large silver buttons on a sleeve in Sardinia, Italy
A stunning hair pin from Sri Lanka, called kondakoora.

For example, the large Amazigh clothing pins, known as tizerzai, tiseghnas or khlel, that kept the traditional dress of the Maghreb secure, are no longer used as everyday wear, as these garments themselves are no longer worn – at least not widely or on a daily basis. The pins are however proudly worn on festive occasions: although their practical use has dwindled, their life as carrier of cultural identity certainly has not.

Another example is hair jewellery. Hairstyling is an important part of body aesthetic and of social practices, and jewellery was used to keep these wonderful hairdos in place. Here as well, changes in hairstyle bring about changes in jewellery, another example of how closely connected jewellery and dress are.

One example, from yet another region of the world, is the beautiful kondakoora hairpin, which was worn in Sri Lanka. This lavish pin, set with coloured zircons, was placed on hair tightly rolled into a bun. After this custom disappeared, the pins were repurposed as brooches.

See more about hair ornaments in this article – they’re also worn in surprising other fashions!

Learn to read jewellery! Four colourful images of online courses.

Jewellery and dress: glittering fabric

Other pieces of jewellery have become so associated with the textiles they are worn on, that it is useless to try and tell where the jewellery ends and the clothing begins.

Take the richly ornamented face veils from Sinai and Palestine for example, which combine both textile and jewellery traditions. The tatreez embroidery that is so well known from clothing is also used on the face veil, which also carries beads, coins and small pieces such as silver amulets. You’ll find these beads, coins and amulets in turn also strung onto necklaces or sewn on garments themselves.

And the flowing headveil shown above, worn in the region of Mount Lebanon, forms a unit with its stunning tapering tantour of embossed and chiseled silver.

The elaborate face veils of the Rashayda are also both an element of dress and of jewellery. These are made of textile with silver woven in, resulting in very heavy and glinting veils. These are further embellished with silver pendants and amulets, that may equally be worn as jewellery.

This tradition of textiles embellished with silver or even gold thread is found in many garments from the region. It’s called badilah or badla, telli or talli, zari or zardozi. In the Western world, the glittery fabrics from Egypt are commonly known as ‘Assiut’ textiles. [1] They are named after the Egyptian town of Assyut where these were produced as export product during the Roaring Twenties.

Spendid Rashayda dress and silver jewellery.

Jewellery and dress: patterns and designs

The line between jewellery and dress fades even more in the case of embroidered embellishments.

The chest panel of Egyptian Siwa oasis wedding dresses is embroidered in the pattern of an amulet necklace, and even the use of colour in some embroidery styles is similar to colours used in jewellery. And the chest panel of a dress from Bahariya oasis, also in Egypt, is decorated with shining applications. An example is above: click on the image to enlarge it.

The same goes for patterns and shapes used: not only common designs such as triangles, but specific shapes such as fish, tortoises, stars and floral designs exist both in jewellery and in dress as well as in body aesthetics – and beyond, such as in basketry, weaving, but also in architectural decoration like the painted symbols on houses.

It is their meaning to the wearer that is central, instead of a division by material or object category. In some cultures, these designs and meanings overlap on both jewellery and dress, amplifying one another, and in others they differ per material carrier, but work together as an ensemble.

Jewellery and dress: together, they are more

That is what I find so fascinating about the potential of jewellery as a historic source: comparing it to other elements of a person’s personal appearance, and looking beyond that to the complete setting of that person in their context of their home, family, and culture, shares a lot about how people viewed themselves. But: that takes a village.

For my line of work, for example, I would never call myself a dress specialist. That is simply not my area of expertise. Studying jewellery, on the other hand, is not something one can add ‘on the side’. Both fields are vast in and of themselves. The most meaningful (and fun!) projects I have been involved in, are those where dress and jewellery specialists work together: it’s exciting to see this many-layered heritage highlighted from different angles!

So, just like jewellery and dress are more than just adornment when studied together, those studies themselves become more than their single fields when specialists work together. Who wants to team up…?

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References

[1] For some reason, this is often misspelled as Assuit. I have no idea why, as the town really is called Assiut, not Assuit. A case of endless copy-paste from a faulty source, I think!

Would you like to quote this article? Please do! Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

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 the jewellery of the Egyptian zar-ritual. 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.