Not Lost But Gone Before

Not Lost But Gone Before

by | European jewellery, General jewellery topics

Jewellery conference

Not Lost But Gone Before

Published on October 26, 2024

When you have been following this blog for a while, you know that jewellery to me is a historic source. It shares a lot about both the people that made and wore these items as well as the world they lived in. No jewellery is more personal in that respect than mourning jewellery. Even though this is a very Western thing, I have been fascinated by it for quite some time, and so I jumped at the chance to co-organise Not Lost But Gone Before, an entire afternoon of talks about this particular topic!

Not Lost But Gone Before: the title

Not Lost But Gone Before was born out of enthusiasm of three people. Kim van Zweeden is a jewellery researcher and podcast host with a wide interest in all things jewellery. Sophie van Gulik is a jewellery specialist and researcher, and the third person, you guessed it, is me.

We share an appreciation of the beauty and history in mourning jewellery, and so we almost organically came up with the idea to organise a symposium when we learned the one and only Sarah Nehama was coming to The Netherlands! Sarah is a specialist on mourning jewellery and author of the book In Death Lamented: see more about that here.

We named the symposium after one of the mottos that is often found on mourning jewellery: Not Lost But Gone Before is a beautiful line, instilling hope in those left behind that they may be reunited with their loved ones at some unknown point in the future.

Mourning jewellery

Mourning jewellery is incredibly personal and sentimental. From the 17th century onwards, jewellery commemorating departed loved ones became fashionable, and this reached an absolute peak in the 19th century. Queen Victoria donned mourning dress after the death of her husband Albert, and as such singlehandedly created a boom in the market for all sorts of mourning jewellery.

Much of that jewellery has survived, and is avidly collected. Our symposium sold out, and we were thrilled to have a room filled with an audience eager to learn more and share!

Sarah presented an overview of mourning jewellery, starting with the earliest memento mori-jewellery and finishing in the 20th century. She explained how styles developed and how new techniques found their way into mourning jewellery, such as daguerreotypes and photography.

Sophie shared the memory of her ancestor, Anna Paulowna (Pauline) van Gulik. This was a powerful story on how personal jewellery can be: after the early death of Pauline, her family went into mourning and held on to every single piece of material culture surrounding her death and funeral. Photos, jewellery, mourning dress and other mementos are still kept in the family until today, and illustrate how hard letting go can be.

Kim brought us a kaleidoscopic overview of mourning customs in her home province, Zeeland. We learned about the stages of mourning expressed through jewellery and dress, the (sometimes) very local customs and choices, and brought us up to speed with traditions from Zeeland.

And finally, I presented a talk on a unique mourning ring from the Netherlands, a piece that ties in closely with national history and the mythmaking that surrounds historical figures.

Mourning jewellery: exhibition

Of course, no symposium on jewellery is complete without an exhibition! We curated a small, but beautiful exhibition on mourning jewellery from The Netherlands and the UK. In it, we addressed materials, such as hairwork and jet. Hairwork is not necessarily exclusively for mourning, but how to tell the difference? And while mourning jewellery is often associated with jet, in The Netherlands this does not exist: mourning jewellery is made of black glass. Mourning necklaces from various in The Netherlands, brooches and rings from both The Netherlands and the UK as well as a beautiful selection of mourning dress in Sophie’s family allowed the guests to enjoy an overview of the wide field of mourning jewellery.

Not Lost But Gone Before: a recurring event

The symposium on mourning jewellery was well received: the room was sold out and we had guests coming from considerable distances to join in. The mingling and discussions afterwards, as well as the experiences shared around the exhibition, made it abundantly clear that there is still so much to explore and share! Not Lost But Gone Before will return in 2025: if you’d like to be kept informed, please drop me a line and we will add you to our mailing list for this event!

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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].

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.

MODA Moroccan Fashion Statements

MODA Moroccan Fashion Statements

by | Museums & Exhibitions

Fashion and design from morocco

MODA: Moroccan Fashion Statements

Published October 10, 2024

Every now and then I come across an exhibition that really leaves me inspired, so imagine my joy when I visited the huge exhibition on Moroccan fashion in Utrecht: MODA – Moroccan fashion statements. Not just because I may have thought ‘I would totally love to wear this’ a little too often, but because this was just immersed with meaning expressed in material form. As usual, click on any of the images below to enlarge them!

MODA: not just any fashion exhibition

Before I take you through a few of my personal highlights, a few general observations. This is an incredibly varied exhibition, in which you will find high couture and street art, luxurious materials and stray finds, innovative and familiar shapes. As the curatorial team (Ninke Bloemberg, curator and iniator of this exhibition, and Zineb Seghrouchni of DAR Cultural Agency) pointed out, this exhibition is not based on books or other forms of debate on what fashion is.

This selection is rooted in people, in everyday life, in today’s culture. It does not aim to be an overview of everything Morocco has to offer in terms of fashion (because you’d need a venue even larger than this), but a celebration of today’s up-and-coming designers alongside fashion icons. It’s like a snapshot of what inspires Moroccan designers today, and a glimpse into the history of fashion. It also illustrates how there is no such thing as monolithic ‘Moroccan’ fashion – the diversity of styles and influences is wide.

Moroccan fashion: today’s world

The first creation I saw, serves as a perfect example. Two designs by Maison Sara Chraïbi: one a wide cloak, the other a flapper-style dress, both from her 2024 Spring-Summer collection. Both carry an image of view into a mosque, whose arches beautifully blend with the lines of the design.

It is not any mosque, however: this is the 12th century Tinmal Mosque, in the High Atlas mountain range. During the devastating earthquake of 2023, it was substantially damaged. Here, its arches are embellished with sparkling gold beads. I imagined how sewing these on, one by one, is almost an act of restoring and protecting, and how wearing it fuses a person and their heritage together. It both brings inner life to the architecture, and embodies a promise to the future.

There is such strength and resilience, but also hope and joy in these first two pieces, that I totally get why these are the show-starters.

Contemporary issues, vintage to ancient design

The design immediately next to it caught my eye, too: a hooded cloak, called silham, covered in embroidered eyes, by Maison ARTC. The cloak itself is vintage, the embroidery has been added. The poem that goes with it, speaks volumes:

I see the change,
The love,
The anger,
The culture,
The hope,
The lack of justice,
The art,
The pain,
The people,
The community,
The world,
Myself,
Don’t forget to witness.

I found the use of eyes in this context extremely powerful: not only do they represent seeing and witnessing, but they also shield the wearer – the power of the eye in deflecting evil is ancient, and the use of sparkling sequins adds to that averting evil. The colour of this cloak, that of henna, adds to that protective and blessing capacity. Seeing and shielding in one garment: it’s this layered meaning that I found to be present throughout the exhibition.

MODA: artists, artisans and everyday life

The exhibition breathes cultural roots and almost effortlessly connects these with new designs and forms. Like the opera cloak of Dior’s 2020 Cruise Collection. Made of wool, dyed with henna, it clearly echoed the traditional henna cloth of southern Morocco. That relation between artists and artisans is also explored in the exhibition. There is a stunning dress where the loom is part of its design by Said Mahrouf, and the same exhibition room shows videos of artisans at work. Here, you’ll also find a wonderful selection of antique Moroccan jewellery on loan from the National Jewellery Museum in Rabat.

What absolutely made my head spin was the attention to hairstyles. Ilham Mestour, a celebrated hairstylist, created several hair designs based on the traditional hairdos of Amazigh women. One of them looked like it was created with actual scented paste, so I asked Zineb Seghrouchni of DAR Cultural Agency, one of the curators, about this piece in particular.

She told me that this was made with ghasoul, and that it smelled wonderful when they took it out of its container to install in the room – I can imagine! Including hair in an exhibition on fashion makes total sense: it is through hairstyles that tribal identities are expressed, but also how a form of private space and time is created. Creating these elaborate hairstyles is much more than just a form of outward appearance: you could say it is the end result of valuable time spent together, stories shared and knowledge transmitted. And that very much belongs in an exhibition on fashion.

MODA: an multi-faceted, rich exhibition

There is much more in this exhibition: from family photos to playful designs, from personal inspiration to global shows. And while I focus, due to the nature of my work I guess, on the more traditional elements that informed the designs, either implicitly or explicitly, that only is just one element of the creations on show. You will see opinions on how we treat our planet, mass-production and pollution, fast consumerism and prejudice.

There is also continuous attention for fashion in art, from street photography to photos enhanced with embroidery (which reminded me a lot of the Imaginarium-project in its treatment of printed matter), video art, a contemplative space to immerse oneself in publications and to meet with other visitors, and a myriad of details that require more than 1 visit – at least, for me!

It is the first time that such a large exhibition on Moroccan fashion has been organised in The Netherlands, and I hope this will be the start of many more: I highly recommend to visit if you have the chance!

MODA. Moroccan Fashion Statements in Centraal Museum Utrecht, Oct 3rd 2024 – March 2, 2025.

Co-curated by Ninke Bloemberg of Centraal Museum and Zineb Seghrouchni of DAR Cultural Agency

I was invited to the press preview and received a copy of the catalogue as a PR-invite.

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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.

What does a jewellery historian do?

What does a jewellery historian do?

by | General jewellery topics

Jewellery research

What does a jewellery historian do…?

Published on August 23, 2024

When people learn I’m a jewellery historian, their first response is often ‘I had no idea that was a thing!’, usually followed by ‘What does a jewellery historian do…?’ In this two-part blog, I’m using the questions I asked about my work to zoom on what it is jewellery historians do, and of course, how I go about it myself. So here is Part 1!

What is jewellery history?

Being a jewellery historian is not a clearly defined field, and that offers plenty possibilities for individual researchers to give it their own spin. Our central theme is, unsurprisingly, jewellery, but that is a theme you can observe from many angles. Jewellery history is a very wide field.

Starting with scope, most jewellery historians focus on either one type or category of jewellery, on a specific timeframe or geographical region, or both. It’s completely impossible to know everything and anything on all jewellery ever created by humans, so limiting one’s scope occurs almost naturally.

Just one example: I have a friend who is extremely knowledgeable about all things jet throughout time: her starting point is the material itself, and from there she traces technical, historical, cultural and economic aspects of jet jewellery. [1] We met at the Society of Jewellery Historians in London, where we both were presenting a talk: yes, we have a society and it’s not even secret! [2]

There are jewellery historians who are extremely focused on technological aspects, but who could not tell you the first thing about its cultural meaning. There are jewellery historians who are intrigued by the aesthetic and iconographic evolving of jewellery as adornment, jewellery historians who study the social meaning of jewellery, and even forensic jewellery historians, who help give a voice to the dead by looking at their jewellery.

The study of jewellery in the widest sense is incredibly varied, and that is what makes it into such a fascinating field, I think.

How did I become a jewellery historian?

There is not really a curriculum to become a jewellery historian in the field of North African and Southwest Asian adornment. For me, this is a self-built field, that took me decades of finding my own path and pursuing my own research interests. And I would not have it any other way, too: I love and appreciate the freedom to go exploring what works and does not work for me, and dive deeper into those aspects that I really enjoy.

So, it’s not something I consciously set out to achieve, with a clear plan and a solid goal in mind: for me, it was more of a natural path that I followed, let by my interests, which eventually led to the realisation I might have become a jewellery historian – and then I went with that.

And what if you wanted to become one? Other avenues to approach include following education at the GIA, pursue specialisation within an art history or design curriculum, or within applied sciences…there are endless possibilities to developing yourself into a jewellery historian.

And where do jewellery historians find a job?

Good question! I also get asked a lot how I ‘got this job’: more on that below, so keep reading! Where may jewellery historians end up? Of course, there are museums with jewellery collections, where jewellery historians work as curators. In academia, you may find them as lecturers in design or history departments, although with most universities, there is not really a curriculum in wider jewellery studies itself. Auction houses also often employ jewellery historians to identify and appraise jewellery, and there is always the possibility of starting your own business as a jewellery dealer or consultant!

Jewellery history: how do I go about my work?

How do I fit in all this? How did I land my job? I have a few central themes that are pivotal to me and which guide my work. You might think of these as my mission, or maybe my main values. This is not necessarily how other jewellery historians interpret their work, this is how I think of mine.

First, I have a clear scope. I focus on adornment in the many cultures in North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological jewellery from this region and from Europe. There is much more out there, and although I have built up quite a large mental reference, I need to reach out to fellow researchers every once in a while, too. Which is always great, because then I get to learn something new…!

Central to my work are these themes:

1) For me, jewellery is a historic source. It has so much to tell, about the world of women, climate change, religion, history, geopolitics, identity…⁠So I’m not the type of historian who focuses on art historian or iconographic details, but more of a historian who places jewellery in its wider context as material culture. That could also be the archaeologist in me, of course, but I can’t see jewellery as simply embellishments only. That would be selling its amazing capacities of storytelling short.

2) Jewellery does not exist in a vacuum. It belongs within a particular context: studying jewellery means understanding this cultural and historic context as well. To me, that is absolutely essential.

You could imagine this as ever widening circles. Starting with jewellery and the body, there is of course looking at directly related fields of study, such as dress and body aesthetic, but also taking research and theory into shaping personal identity into account, along with things like gender studies. Widening our view a little further, there is the field of economy and trade to observe, ranging from household economy to shifting geopolitical landscapes. Beyond that, there is the intangible: how does jewellery relate to informal ritual, but also to things like expressions or sayings, songs, and poetry?

3) Jewellery is heritage. It is a living part of the society that created it. To me, this is crucial, particularly when thinking about its future. Where is the jewellery, currently residing with private collectors, going to end up? For me, engaging with, and more importantly listening to the communities that created and wore these items of jewellery is of major importance.

4) Personal adornment is not simply an ‘object’: in many cultures it forms part of a person, helps them grow and is believed to contribute to their safety and wellbeing. Thinking of jewellery as being alive somehow offers different approaches to understanding these better, instead of only looking at them as a commodity that you can buy or sell.

How did I get this job as a jewellery historian?

Well, I built it myself. I think this may be one of the things I’m most proud of: that I can actually build a business out of something I believe to important and something I love doing – a business that allows me to keep on working in and adding to this field.

It makes me feel incredibly grateful to realise there are so many people who do not just buy jewellery, but are also genuinely interested in their cultural background. The e-courses I developed for example work so well they helped me fund my (self-funded, because independent researcher) PhD research in the past, and now they continue to support my next research projects. On top of that, I get to do commissioned writing in really exciting projects and to present talks on jewellery, all while helping other appreciate their collections of jewellery even more. It’s honestly the best job ever.

But what do I do all day, exactly? More on that in Part 2 of this blog!

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References

[1] Sarah Caldwell-Steele is a researcher and jetworker who knows jet in and out! Follow her work and research here.

[2] The Society of Jewellery Historians is very much worth joining! Fascinating lectures, an illustrated periodical and always something new to learn.

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.

Czech glass pendants with Arabic script

Czech glass pendants with Arabic script

by | Magic & Amulets

Western glass for the muslim world

Glass amulets with Arabic script

Updates August 22, 2024

Looking at a very specific type of amulet in this blog post: the pressed glass plaquettes inscribed with what looks like Arabic calligraphy. Are those texts even real? And how old are these?

Glass amulets with Arabic text: their shape and origin

Let’s look at their shape first. This is similar to much older pendants that were popular in for example Iran and India. In the gallery above, you’ll see an example from Iran which dates to the 18th century. It carries writing on both sides. The other example is a jade pendant from India, also densely inscribed, which even older: it dates to the 17th century.

Plaquettes of similar shape, dating to the late 1800’s, are in the collection of the British Museum, and all seem to point to the Shi’ite realm in their texts. [1] So this shape is one that was familiar to many people, notably (but not exclusively!) Shia muslims.

Glass pendants with Arabic text: Western production

The glass amulets with what looks like Arabic script, as you see above, are much newer. They have been produced widely in the Western world, with the aim of selling these to the Islamic world. Like in so many other cases, these companies created objects that were already known and popular, but offered them in larger quantities than ever before: mass production processes flooded the markets and, very often, upended local economies.

One of the companies that created these was Sachse & Co., who specialised in glass objects for trade around the world. They created not just beads and pendants for the Islamic world, but also, for example, imitations of teeth and bone for the trade with Oceania – and much more.

In the late 1800s, when these glass pendants were produced, Jablonec, the town where the company was located, was still part of Austria and known as Gablonz. [2] The light blue, translucent pendant that I’m holding in the photo above carries the text Czechoslovakia – thus establishing their date of production at least after 1918 and before 1938. Nowadays, this is known as the Czech Republic.

Glass pendants with Arabic text: where and how were they used?

Glass amulets with Arabic text were used in a variety of ways. One of its uses that I really love, is mentioned by Barbara Black Koltuv. She describes how clear glass amulets of this type, which she purchased in Jerusalem, were attached to Bayer aspirin bottles: surely, aspirins would work if encouraged by the name of God! [3] I have reached out the Bayer company archive to enquire if this practice was known to them. It was not, so I believe that these were attached to the bottles in the Middle East itself by entrepreneurial sellers.

Another one of these amulets was strung on cord much like jewellery from Rajasthan in India, and worn as a necklace. You’ll see it in the gallery below: compare the stringing to that of the antique jade pendant from India above. In fact, a few of the examples in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford have labels attached specifying where they were traded to, like Singapore [4].

But their use was not limited to the eastern Mediterranean and further east, such as Iran, India, Singapore or Indonesia. One such pendant was part of an amulet obtained in Algeria in 1906. Interestingly, this was part of a set consisting of one coral bead, two cowrie shells, one green glass bead and a black glass bead decorated with two bands, painted in gold. [5]

Glass pendants with Arabic calligraphy: what does it say?

This is where it gets more complicated. Because not all of these amulets actually carry legible text, but some of them absolutely do! And whether or not they do is confusing, to museum curators and speakers of Arabic alike.

See the two examples above (click to enlarge the images): the blue amulet reads Hasbi Allah, meaning ‘God Suffices’, or ‘God is enough for me’. Try this with your online translation app, and it will most likely come back with a legible result. Now the pendant next to it is the same, but is labelled with ‘bogus inscription’. This one, too, reads ‘God Suffices’, but the first letter is drawn slightly different: there is more of a downward line. That also goes for the third pendant, where the first letter looks like a single diagonal line.

For the dark blue pendant with elaborate calligraphy as shown above in the first gallery, I reached out to the community and wow, what an amazing response! Hatem Arafa, who is a calligraphy artist and designer based in Turkey, and Youmna Elsabry, an Egyptian jewellery designer,  explained to me what it says: ‘What God willed [has occurred], there is no power except in God’, a reading conformed by many others. [6]

Glass pendants with text: how old are these?

Going over the examples in museums and those available in the trade today, it seems these glass plaquettes of a form originally associated with Shi’ite pendants were created up until the Interbellum. Incredibly important here is the acquisition date of objects, as that shows you when these things became available on the market, when they were at the peak of their availability, and when they ceased to be offered.

A quick overview shows that the glass amulets with the most elaborate inscriptions (such as the dark blue example above) have been collected at the beginning of the 19th century, and those with simpler forms (like the one I am holding above) seem to have been produced up until the 1930s. They do not seem to appear later – of course, the popular beads known as ‘hajj beads’ continued to be produced, but these are of a very different shape.

This blog will be continued with an article on Czech glass hajj beads and their use!

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References

[1] Porter, V. 2011. Arabic and Persian Seals and Amulets in the British Museum, p. 154.

[2] As researched here by Pitt Rivers Museum.

[3] Black Koltuv, B. 2005. Amulets, Talismans and Magical Jewelry. A Way to the Unseen, Ever-Present, Almighty God. Nicholas-Hays, Berwick, p. 135.

[4] Accession number 1900.27.17. See it here.

[5] Accession number 1985.50.1050. See it here.

[6] See the comments on this Instagram post, where I asked the community for their insights and several people responded.

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.

Triangular amulets: symbolism and jewellery traditions in the Middle East

Triangular amulets: symbolism and jewellery traditions in the Middle East

by | Magic & Amulets

The meaning of triangles

Triangular amulets: symbolism and jewellery traditions in the Middle East

Updated October 1, 2025

Amulets come in many forms, and one of the most familiar is the triangular amulet. Found in jewellery across the Middle East and North Africa, these pieces combine shape, symbolism, and protection. The triangle itself has long been understood as a powerful form, associated with balance, fertility, and strength.

In this blog, part of my series on amulets in jewellery, we’ll look at how triangular amulets appear in silver, beads, textiles, and more — and what they might have meant to the people who wore them.

The symbolism of triangles in amulets and jewellery

Where does the triangle shape of amulets come from? As this is a very ancient symbol, its exact origin is difficult to pinpoint. It may be connected to phenomena in the natural world, such as the sun breaking through clouds, or a stylization of a mountain.

Both are associated with otherworldly realms: the rays of sun are interpreted as a stairway to heaven in some cultures, and mountains are known as places where gateways to other worlds may be located.

Apart from its physical shape, the triangle also carries symbolic value. It represents the constellation of man-woman-child, or the cycle of birth-life-death. Those symbolic values are also echoed in the number 3: see more about numerical values in jewellery here.

The most important thing to remember, I think, is that there is not just one open-and-shut explanation for what a triangle represents. It is not just one and the same thing to every culture that has ever walked this earth. For example, in some cultures, the triangle may also represent a stylized female wearing a dress – or could it be the other way around, that the dress is exaggerated as a triangle precisely because of its symbolic properties?

I’m usually wary of claims for any shape as representing one thing only. The reality of informal ritual and human associations is much more fluid and prone to changes, so instead, I’d suggest we all keep an open mind to the possibility of other explanations.

What we do know, is that the triangle is an important shape, and so you’ll find it in numerous amulets. Let’s look at some examples next! Here, I’ll go into actual amulets, objects designed to keep a person safe or attract good luck – triangles are worked into jewellery as design element in a million ways, but that’s for another blog!

Triangular amulets of gold and silver as containers

One form in which you’ll find triangular amulets, is as an amulet container made of precious metal. These are designed to hold either specific texts, or substances such as incense and herbs. They form part of a complete repertoire of amulet containers: Learn more about amulet containers and their surprising origin in this article.

You’ll find them incorporated into jewellery or worn on their own, executed in gold or silver, or maybe in less precious materials – triangles form a very recognizable form of amulet.

Beaded, textile and leather triangular amulets for protection

The triangle shape is also often used to create amulets that contain something, but that cannot be opened. These more like pouches, and what is contained in them, is often only known to wearer, or even only to the person who made the amulet: the wearer may just have to trust in their craft and knowledge.

These are also worn in jewellery, like the necklace above in the British Museum shows (click to enlarge it). Here, you’ll see a red fabric triangular amulet along with other materials that are known to keep evil at a distance: a tortoise shield and pieces of alum, also in a triangular shape. I’ll be going over those in future posts!

But more often, triangular amulets of fabric, leather of beaded forms are hung on other things than humans: cattle, but also one’s house, car, or utensils. The photo above shows a triangular amulet with golden sequins (and one blue one, against the evil eye), on a loom in Uzbekistan, where I photographed it.

You’ll find them incorporated into jewellery or worn on their own, executed in gold or silver, or maybe in less precious materials – triangles form a very recognizable form of amulet.

Triangular amulets: regional variations

The triangle shape is important in amulets, and this series will continue with very specific examples of triangular amulets that each have their own capacities:

Tunisian resin triangle amulets

Palestinian Hajar Musa triangle amulets

Triangular amulets: Frequently Asked Questions

Why are some amulets triangular?
The triangle is one of the simplest and strongest shapes. It may be derived from sunlight falling through clouds, from the shape of mountains, or refer to female dress. In jewellery, triangular amulets embody this varying symbolism.

What are triangular amulets made of?
They can be made from silver or gold, often serving as containers for prayers or texts. Other examples are created from beads, fabric, leather, or even resin, depending on local traditions.

Where are triangular amulets found?
Triangular amulets are recorded across the wider Middle East and North Africa. Each region used different materials and techniques to shape the triangular form.

Do triangular amulets always have the same meaning?
No. While the triangle often symbolises strength or fertility, its meaning changes depending on time and place.

Are triangular amulets still used today?
The triangle shape is still a popular form for pendants protecting homes, cars and people. They continue to illustrate the cultural importance of amulets in jewellery history.

Triangular amulets: meaning in geometry

By looking closely at triangular forms, we can trace how the simplest geometry became part of a shared visual language of amulets in jewellery.

This post is part of my series on amulets in jewellery — alongside blogs on for example eye beads, glass amulets, and clove necklaces. Together, they show how different materials and forms across the Middle East and North Africa were carriers of protective power!

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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.