Parfums d’Orient: book

Parfums d’Orient: book

by | Reviews

Institut du Monde Arabe

Parfums d’Orient: the catalogue

Published on Jan 8, 2024

The wonderful exhibition Parfums d’Orient, in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, came with its very own publication. The book, too, is called Parfums d’Orient, and it is as beautiful as the exhibition itself.

Ancient stone incense burner from the Arab Peninsula

Parfums d’Orient: the catalogue

The book presents 26 essays by renowned authors. The essays are grouped into four main parts: natural resources for perfumes, the art of perfuming oneself, fragrance and the invisible world, and fragrance in and around the house. As such, the catalogue follows the design of the exhibition and paints a complete picture of the world of fragrance.

The book starts out with an introduction of fragrance. How does it affect our mood? Why is it important to have around us? And how does our sense of smell actually work? A series of essays sets the scene to understand the role of fragrance in our personal lives, and the cultural interconnectivity that perfumes from the Middle East represent.

Parfums d’Orient: the bounty of nature

The first essays are devoted to ingredients and perfume history. I enjoyed the beautifully illustrated essays on Damascene rose, oud, ambergris and musk. The historical background explains how scented paths crossed, resulting in the familiar fragrances of today, while the essay on the perfumer’s art sheds light on both the past and the future of perfuming.

Parfums d’Orient: perfuming oneself

The second part explores the realm of science and history. Here, we learn of medieval manuscripts with perfume recipes, the trade in incense and the beautifully designed perfume flasks. An exploration into the bath house reveals the use of fragrance in relation to health and well-being.

I really liked the personal point of view on perfuming in the essay on perfume and art: imagine, indeed, losing your sense of smell as a result of the pandemic. Suddenly, the world becomes one-dimensional and plain; fragrance is of greater importance than we might think.

Parfums d’Orient: fragrance and the invisible world

Now this is one of my favourite angles, and if you have taken my course Scents of the Middle East, you’ll have seen why! Fragrance itself is like an invisible power that may affect our happiness and sense of wellbeing. This part of the catalogue addresses that supernatural capacity of scent throughout the ages.

Ancient Egypt, early Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam have their own spiritual connotations with fragrance, and these are explored in separate essays. The special essay on fumigations and magic is short, but fascinating!

Parfums d’Orient: perfume in and around the house

And this is where the jewellery is….! Scented paste and fragrant beads are shown in relation to the intimacy of marriage, adding yet another layer to the meanings perfume may carry. That extends to perfuming one’s guests and spicing dishes, both of which are discussed, too.

Parfums d’Orient: art, research, history, science

The catalogue is beautifully illustrated, showing you everything from ancient artefacts to modern art, from sweeping landscape views to medieval manuscripts. What I really loved about this book is that it seamlessly integrates the historical and cultural background of fragrance with art and lived experiences. As such, it really conveys the importance of the senses for our everyday existence. Fragrance is part and parcel of every aspect of life, and the exhibition catalogue absolutely brings that point across.

Parfums d’Orient. By Hanna Boghanim and Agnes Carayon (eds) (2023). 223 pages, full-colour, in French. Published by Institut du Monde Arabe/Skira.

Available with the publisher and in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

I purchased the book in the museum shop of the Institut du Monde Arabe upon my visit of the exhibition.

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Explore the world of fragrance in the course Scents of the Middle East!

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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. 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.

Islamic amulet cases

Islamic amulet cases

by | Magic & Amulets

History of amulet containers

Types of Islamic amulet cases

Published Jan 1, 2024

What is the origin of Islamic amulet cases? Often called hirz, higab or taweez they come in various shapes and forms, and those forms tell us more about their history. These cases hold (Islamic) talismans, and the nature of this talisman is hinted at by the shape of the container. Because ‘form follows function’ is not just a designer’s oneliner: looking at the shape of an amulet container is very revealing of its historic origins and its setting.

This post brings you up to speed with the 3 elementary shapes of amulet cases – it takes less than 3 minutes!

Amulet case type 1: Tubular amulet cases

These go way back! Evidence backing up the use of amulet cases in the shape of a tube already stems from ancient Egypt, as the example above shows (click the image to enlarge it). In Iraq, an alabaster jar excavated near Baghdad contained ten amulet cases. [1] The shape of all these containers is revealing of two things: their long-gone contents, and the incredible time span they have been in use.

Tubular amulet cases are designed to hold scrolls. You’ll see some examples of Islamic amulets for protection above (click to enlarge the photos). These you would roll up and insert them into the amulet case.

This is a practice that stems from the times that writing was done mainly on papyrus sheets. These can’t be folded very well (although it happened occasionally, but it was never considered a huge success), so they were usually rolled into scrolls. Large scrolls would contain complete books, and tiny scrolls could accommodate just a few words. Like spells, or religious texts.

The scroll as the essential form of a written amulet is so old, that once paper was invented, the practice of writing, and even printing, the use of talismanic scrolls continued. [2] Never change a winning form, right?

Amulet case type 2: Slim rectangular, square and triangular amulet cases

When writing materials changed, a new shape of amulet cases popped up. Unlike papyrus, paper can easily be folded, and tucked into a rectangular or square amulet case. In the Mediterranean, this form of amulet case started to develop in the early Middle Ages.

These can contain more than just a sheet of paper: they may hold complete books. When books began to be designed in the form we know today (a bunch of pages held together by a spine and two covers), they could also be created in miniature form.

A special style of Islamic case is the Qur’an holder, which contains a complete version of the Qur’an.

Triangular amulet cases were created even later. These may also hold written texts or prayers, but here their form is important, too: it refers to the number 3. Click here for the surprising ways numerology is present in jewellery!

Amulet case type 3: Larger amulet boxes

An entirely different form is that of the amulet box. Here, the amulet case is shaped like a box. Its opening is significantly larger than that of a regular, slim amulet container: these often have an actual lid instead of a narrow, letterbox-like slot. The amulet box also has more space inside.

This design is also very old. Above you’ll see some examples: a gold amulet box called bulla, and a gold necklace holding such an amulet box. Click on the images to enlarge them and to see the accompanying captions.

Originally, box-like amulet cases are not designed to hold texts, but things. Their origins lie in the use of amulet pouches. Based on the advice of a healer or ritual practitioner, the boxes would hold magical materials that were believed to be helpful.

Later on, they were also used to hold folded pieces of paper, custom-made miniature books, and fragrance. Today, they may hold a variety of things, from very personal mementoes to texts, fragrances, prayers and more.

Islamic amulet cases: rooted in a long history

All of these forms are still used in Islamic amulet cases of North Africa and the Middle East. Above are some examples from Tunisia, Syria, Oman, Yemen, Egypt and Iraq. And of course, these basic shapes are not limited to the Islamic world: protecting oneself is one of the oldest human traditions, and as such similar shapes are found worldwide. Looking at the shape of a jewel may tell you a lot about its historic origin and uses!

…and in case you’re wondering how amulet cases actually open: Read this quick guide next!

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What is inside amulet cases and how were they used? Find out in the e-course on amulets & charms!

More posts on amulets? Browse them all here!

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References

[1] Read more about this find here with the Metropolitan Museum of Art

[2] See for block printed talismanic scrolls K. Schaefer 2022, The material nature of block printed amulets: what makes them amulets?

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. 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.

100 jewellery blogs

100 jewellery blogs

by | Opinion

Jewellery blogging

100 jewellery blogs

Published Dec 29, 2023

This piece is the 100th blog on jewellery! Would you believe it? Time truly flies. A lot can happen in 100 blog articles, and so I wanted to share more of personal perspective on the things I learned during these 100 blogs on jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa. Settle in for the good, the bad and the amazing of blogging on traditional jewellery!

Collecting silver jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa

But first, a little on how I got into this! I started collecting jewellery back in 1995. At that time, I was a student of Egyptology, and I loved hanging out in Cairo’s Khan el-Khalili to look for old jewellery. It still feels like yesterday, even though it’s almost 30 years ago.

Now in those days, the Internet was not what it was today. Social media were not invented yet (I know! Shocker!), having a personal email address was new, and any information still traveled slowly. These were the days that a computer was a big plastic box that could handle all of 250 MB, most households still had one telephone in a fixed place, and when I went to Egypt to work on an excavation, chances were my family would receive my letters only after I had returned.

That went both ways: the most exciting part of working on an excavation was heading out to Cairo once a week, and check if letters from friends and family had been delivered.

So that tells you two things: yes, I am that old, and there was very little reliable info on jewellery around when I just started out. The excitement when a new book appeared on jewellery was just as intense as that feeling of joy when a handwritten letter had found its way to me in Cairo – wow! Something new to read!

A silver amulet container from Egypt, placed on handwritten Arabic magic squares

Blogging on traditional jewellery from North Africa and the Middle East

How different things are today – there is so much out there on all things jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia! At just a click of a mouse or a tap of the finger, there is a world of images and info available that I only could have dreamed of all those years ago. To me, it is absolutely fantastic to browse Pinterest-boards and chat with people from all over the world through social media who share that passion for traditional jewellery.

But…that is also where the flip side is, I think: in the lightning speed with which information travels the Internet and our ever-shortening attention span. When I do online research, I come across the same tidbits of info repeated again and again. Absolutely, there is so much interesting stuff out there! That also includes tons of content that is copied and shared over and over again, but not necessarily always true or even reliable. More, yes, but not always better.

Jewellery blogging: all the good

That is partly why I decided to start a blog. The other reason, of course, is that I just love talking about jewellery! And, as it happens, I also really, really love to write.

By starting my own blog, I could write about everything I find fascinating or beautiful about traditional jewellery – and that is a lot. A hundred posts on jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa, and it feels like I’m just getting started!

The absolute amazing part of blogging is the number of people I have ‘met’ through blog posts or social media posts. I could never have dreamed of the community I found simply by writing about jewellery, and starting a blog honestly is one of the best decisions I ever made.

Nerding out in the notes: jewellery blogging with transparency

Blogging provides me with the opportunity to add solid information to the digital world. And one of the things I learned in the past 100 jewellery blogs is that I prefer to include references. At the end of most of my blog articles, you will find the exact place where I got specific information from. If it’s available online, I include a link to it. If someone told me, I am clear about that, too.

I want to be as transparent as possible on where I get my information from. Providing clear references helps all of us with our own research. That’s why referencing is standard practice in published articles, and I don’t see why I should not apply the same to blog posts. You can always skip them, they’re at the bottom end for a reason!

Detail of coins and beads on a bright red Palestinian headdress

Blogging on jewellery collection management

There is a segment to jewellery collecting that does not get all that much attention online: how to actually manage a collection of traditional jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa? There are practical aspects to consider like cleaning silver, storing and documenting, but what to do with your jewellery collection later in life? Sell it, donate it…and how to go about that?

And then there are the ethical and legal aspects to consider. What about coral beads, ivory bangles, excavated beads, archaeological jewellery…can these just be bought and sold? And what is this whole provenance-discussion about, specifically for collectors of traditional jewellery from the Middle East and Southwest Asia?

I decided to blog about those practical things, too, and over the past 100 blogs I learned that these tips for jewellery collectors are among the articles that you refer back to most often. I’m really glad to be of help in this way!

Sigrid van Roode, wearing a summer dress, reading books on Tuareg jewellery

Blogging about jewellery books

Even though the digital world is amazing, I adore books. There are a lot more of those since I first started out, too, and one of things I love doing the most is reviewing the latest books on jewellery and related fields for you. Opening that package straight from the publisher still brings the same level of excitement as 30 years ago! I guess I’m one of the biggest book nerds you’ll ever meet.

Over the past 100 jewellery book blogs, I learned that you like these posts: they are appreciated by people who are on the fence on whether or not to buy a particular jewellery book, and by people looking for titles they might enjoy.

Here as well, I found that being transparent adds to the value of the blog: I’ll always mention whether I received a book as an advanced reading copy, or if I purchased it myself, whether it was gifted by the author, or any other way a book may have found its way to me.

The tarnish on jewellery blogging: copyright things

Blogging sounds simple, but it is not the marshmallow-hued world of sipping latte’s in fashionable coffeerooms that the Internet would have you think of: a lot of work goes into these articles. Especially if you’d like your photos to look nice and your texts to be referenced. Writing blog posts just takes serious time.

And then suddenly, there is that first realization that someone has copied your work, copyright policy nothwithstanding. That is a reality I learned in 100 blog posts, too.

Here are some examples of things that actually happened. Please forgive me if the following sounds blunt! But I promised you the bad, too, so here we go.

I’ve had some of my photos decapitated to cut off the ‘Bedouin Silver’-text (granted, the text was at the bottom of the image, so it’s more like defooted) – and in doing so, part of the object on the photo was removed, too. It’s beyond me how anyone could want to pass off a photo as their own so badly they would purposefully damage the image itself, too.

I’ve had people copy my social media posts and present it as their own. It happens a lot with the texts I wrote with those posts: these I regularly find literally copy-pasted into online sellers’ descriptions; without acknowledging that it was not them who researched and wrote those lines.

A special shout-out at this point to jewellery dealers with online galleries of traditional jewellery: I know your images are getting snatched, too, and presented in shady online shops as if they were for sale. I feel you!

But: it gets even crazier. I’ve seen people give talks in which their presentation sheets were made of my photos and texts, but without a single credit line. That has happened to other researchers I know, too, one of which actually attended a talk made largely with her material. It made for a super awkward Q&A.

To be completely honest with you, it still hurts each and every time I see my work copied and shared without proper credit. I can’t think of another label to put on that feeling. I don’t mind the sharing itself (on the contrary, I’d say!) but please do me the courtesy of acknowledging my time and effort.

Well, that was it for the bad! After writing 100 posts though, I can confidently say that the good outweighs everything else. So…

…another 100 jewellery blogs coming up!

All of the appreciation, friendship and community (as well as the occasional copyright infringements) I get, signal one thing: apparently, this type of jewellery blog is just the thing people are looking for.

I honestly love receiving your feedback, the friendships that have formed over the years and the lively jewellery discussions I have had. I’ll be blogging away on this end, and I’m excited to continue contributing to the jewellery community of collectors, researchers and scholars.

Another 100 jewellery blogs…? Coming right up!

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More historical background on jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa? Check out the course on Ancient Jewellery!

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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. 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.

Ancient jewellery: Lebanon

Ancient jewellery: Lebanon

by | Cultures & People

Jewellery history of the Levant

Ancient jewellery from Lebanon

Published Dec 27, 2023

What is the history of traditional jewellery in North Africa and the Middle East? Historical context and cultural heritage have left their traces in the traditional jewellery worn in countries as we know them today, and so this blog series takes us back to the distant past. In this blog, I will look at jewellery history in Lebanon in very broad strokes: what is the history of Lebanese jewellery?

Lebanon: early jewellery history

The geographical area which is now Lebanon is, historically, part of the larger Syro-Palestinian cultural sphere. That is reflected in its ancient jewellery: it shows continuity and connections. One of the earliest occurrences of adornment and the production of adornment in Western Asia is found in Lebanon.

A few kilometers from Beirut lies Ksar ‘Akil, a rock shelter where people lived some 40,000 years ago. These people created beads of shell, and not just any shells: they were very particular about their choices. They liked to mix very white and colourful shells. And it doesn’t end there: they selected shells specifically to create ornaments. So, it’s not creativity with left-over shells from food production, as you might think, but a very selective process to gather exactly those shells they wanted. [1]

These Lebanese shell beads are among the oldest ornaments in the world, and are instrumental in understanding the development of cognitive capacities of humans: it is by decorating ourselves that we show awareness of how others see us.

Lebanon in the Bronze Age: beads of history

It is beads again that tell us about long distance trade in the early Bronze Age, around 3000 – 2500 BCE. In Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, in the north of Lebanon, a small urban center flourished. Here, inscribed cylindrical beads were found. These are seals, that were used to sign administrative documents: rolling the bead over wet clay would leave the impression of the image on the seal. They tell us a lot about organization and administration. A gold ring with a lapis lazuli cylinder seal, shown above, was possibly found in the city of Byblos: I am showing it to you next to a cylinder seal, possibly from Iraq, to give you an idea of such a bead.

The materials used to make beads are as informative about long distance trade. Seven unassuming steatite beads reveal a trade network that reached as far as the Indus Valley. On the site, no evidence for bead production was found, making it likely that these beads were traded. And here again, their colours seems to have been significant: it’s the type of steatite that turns white when burned that seems to have been preferred. [2]

Bronze beads from Lebanon

In the Middle Bronze Age, cast bronze beads have been found on various sites in Lebanon. Here again, we see how Lebanon formed part of a wider world in the Levant: the Lebanese beads have been created using the same metallurgical practices such as alloy composition and techniques used as elsewhere in Southwest Asia.

What metallurgical analyses of the Lebanese beads also reveal is the practice of reuse: lead has been added to the mix in some ornaments. Did the people who made these beads have difficulty accessing tin and copper, or could they simply not afford it? [3]

Byblos: a Mediterranean trade hub

The city of Byblos was a major trading port on the Mediterranean and received ships from all over the sea, as well as trade routes that came from further inland. An example is the trading ship that sank off the coast of Turkey: among its cargo were thousands of beads and gold jewellery that came from the southern Levant. This ship would also have traded in the port of Byblos.

In the city of Byblos, a gold disc was found which shows us an example of cultural exchange around 4,000 years ago. The workmanship is Mesopotamian in technique, but not in execution. It is the disc shown in the gallery above: click to enlarge the photos.

Perhaps this is the work of a local craftsman, who learned to work with granulation in the style of current-day Iraq. The disc is unique and no other parallels for the use of granulation in a similar item exist. While Byblos has revealed quite a lot of Egyptian or Egyptianizing jewellery, this piece is neither.

Byblos: Egyptian influences

How did Egyptian jewellery end up in Byblos? That is because the region that is now Lebanon was located within the Egyptian sphere of influence for much of the Bronze and early Iron Age. The Egyptian court would send gifts to other kings, and as the collection in the National Museum in Beirut shows, these were of very high quality. The kings of Byblos were considered important partners.

Jewellery in the Egyptian style became very popular. It was also preferred by the non-elite, as the spread of relatively low-quality scarabs made of amethyst shows: these have been found throughout the southern Levant. [4]

In the gallery above (click to enlarge the photos), you will see a few examples of this cultural exhange: amethyst scarabs in gold rings and bracelets, and the continuation of the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus-symbol in jewellery from Lebanon.

From Lebanon across the Mediterranean: Phoenician jewellery

Trade in the Mediterranean world was dominated by the Phoenicians during the first millennium. They operated from Lebanon. From their main ports in Beirut, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre they established colonies throughout North Africa and Europe. Carthage, in current-day Tunisia, is one of their most famous cities which would become an empire of itself.

Because of the origins of the Phoenicians in current-day Lebanon, Phoenician jewellery is heavily influenced by that of ancient Egypt, too: you will find lots of scarabs and other Egyptian motifs in Phoenician jewellery. These are combined with other cultural influences, like that of the Aegean world.

Very specific for Phoenician jewellery are the famous face-beads: these have been found widely throughout the Mediterranean, for example also on Sardinia. A few examples are in the image above: Phoenician jewellery requires its own article, which I will add soon!

Roman jewellery in Lebanon

When Lebanon was part of the Roman Empire, here, too, Roman jewellery became popular. Funerary stelae show images of men and women dressed in Roman fashion, and excavations of Roman cemeteries brought Roman jewellery to light. [5]

And that was not just for ordinary people: the gods, too, were believed to be adorned with jewellery. The arm of a statue found in Beirut was shown with no less than thirteen (!) bracelets on its upper arm. This was a statue of the god Jupiter Heliopolitanus, who, as supreme deity, needed opulent jewellery to reflect his status. The impression shown above shows the splendour with which divinities were imagined. [6]

Ancient jewellery of Lebanon: a cultural treasure

The wide variety in ancient jewellery from Lebanon testifies to millennia of cultural exhange, innovation and trade. If you’d like to see more of this in person, I highly recommend a visit to the National Museum in Beirut: there is much more to admire than one blog article can accommodate!

This blog will continue with the traditional jewellery of Lebanon.

This is an updated, adapted and expanded version of a blog I wrote earlier for the Zay Initiative.

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More posts on jewellery, cultures and people? Browse them all here!

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More historical background on jewellery from the Middle East and North Africa? Check out the course on Ancient Jewellery!

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References

[1] Kuhn, S. et al. 2001. Ornaments of the earliest Upper Paleolithic: New insights from the Levant, in: PNAS 2001, vol 98 (13), pp. 7641-7646.

[2] Damick, A. & M. Woodworth 2015. Steatite beads from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida: A case study in early Bronze Age technology in Northern Coastal Lebanon, in: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 3, pp. 603-614.

[3] Morr, Z. el & M. Mödlinger 2014. Middle Bronze Age Metal Artefacts and Metallurgical Practices at the Sites of Tell Arqa, Mougharet el-Hourriyeh, Yanouh and Kharihi in Lebanon, in: Levant 46:1 pp 27-42.

[4] David, A. 2019. Uninscribed Amethyst Scarabs from the Southern Levant, in: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 381, pp. 57-81.

[5] Jong, L. de 2010. Performing Death in Tyre: the Life and Afterlife of a Roman Cemetery in the Province of Syria, in: American Journal of Archaeology Vol 114 no. 4, pp. 597-630.

[6] B. Fowlkes-Childe & M. Seymour, 2019, The World Between Empires. Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 126. I would like to thank Tania Zaven of the DGA for providing me with this reference and showing me this fragment in the National Museum of Beirut.

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. 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.

Perfume jewels: meskia

Perfume jewels: meskia

by | Objects

Ottoman splendour

Perfume jewels: the meskia pendant

Updated Feb 19, 2024

In the Maghreb, notably in Algeria and Tunisia, spectacular containers called meskia are worn. What are these, what is their history and why are they important? In this post, I’m exploring these delicate and sumptuous jewels.

A stunning gold meskia from Algeria, with pearls, rubies, emaralds and diamonds.
A beautiful gold meskia from Tunisia.

What is a meskia?

A meskia is a small, delicate pendant with an open worked lid, which contained fragrances. It is usually made of precious materials, such as gold, and decorated with gemstones and pearls. Its name, meskia, is derived from its content: it would hold musk, but was also used for other scented substances. [1]

These containers are relatively small and very opulent in their decoration. That tells us more about the importance attached to these jewels. So, what is that importance?

Meskia: fragrance and faith

Like its name suggests, the contents of boxes like these would have been musk. Musk is an important and popular scent, as it was said to be the favourite fragrance of the Prophet. In that respect, it carries a religious association.

Musk was a scent that was imported into the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity: the Persians had access to the trade with Central Asia. [2] This is where the musk deer lived, from whose glands the scent was first extracted.

Through the association with the Prophet, musk became extremely popular and was imported on a massive scale. That popularity continues until today. Musk is now largely synthetically produced, and you will find it in many shapes and forms throughout the Islamic world.

Style and execution: Ottoman luxury

The opulence of the meskia reflects its origin in the Ottoman period. The Ottoman Empire stretched across the Mediterranean, and included large parts of what is now Algeria and Tunisia. The splendour of the Ottoman court in current-day Istanbul traveled with Ottoman dignitaries, merchants and craftspeople to all corners of the empire. Here, it continued to inspire both the local elite and craftsmen who catered to a wealthy clientele.

" The meskia is a sign of status: both the container and its contents are precious and expensive"

Differences in meskia styles

Not all meskia-pendants are the same: their shape is similar, but there are differences in their execution that are particular to the regions where they have been made and worn. [3]

The Algerian meskia shown above (click to enlarge it) is made of ajour-cut sheet gold. The box itself is decorated with a rim of pearls. Its lid has been set with a border of rubies around a large central emerald. The floral design of the lid shows accents of small rubies and emeralds, and a few diamonds set in the silver leaves.

The Tunisian meskia (click to enlarge it) is made in a different technique: its lid is executed in fine filigree. The dangles of pearls and irregularly shaped precious stones serve to convey that same luxurious status.

Meskia: an urban jewel

Wearing a meskia has long been an urban tradition. [4] This is where the wealthier people lived: rich merchants, affluent families and of course the administrative and military Ottoman elite. They had access to the best craftsmen, as well as to precious stones used to decorated these perfume containers. The content of these containers was expensive as well. Wearing a meskia was a sign of wealth: not only because of the container, but because of the expensive perfume in it, too.

Outside of the main urban centres, fragrance was worn as well, but it took other forms such as the scented paste beads and silver perfume containers.

See more about those scented paste beads from North Africa in this article!

The meskia today: an important wedding jewel

The meskia is still part and parcel of wedding attire. Algerian and Tunisian brides wear elaborate necklaces made of scented paste beads, rows of pearls and a meskia container. As these jewels are quite costly, they can be rented for the day from the wedding planner. Through their combination of heritage, identity and faith, they add an important level of festivity to the wedding. It’s a small, but highly significant piece of jewellery!

Collage of a smiling woman from Egypt, wearing gold earrings, with dewy rose petals, jasmine and lilies. A bright yellow text box reads 'Scents of the Middle East'

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Explore the world of fragrance in the course Scents of the Middle East!

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References

[1] Eudel, Dictionnaire des Bijoux de l‘Afrique du Nord, under ‘meskia’, notes that ‘mesk’ is also a word used to indicate a leather pouch in which jewellery was stored. This shares the significance of a container designed to hold precious content.

[2] King, A.H. 2007. The musk trade and the Near East in the Early Medieval Period. PhD-thesis Indiana University, p. 239.

[3] As already noted by Eudel in his Dictionnaire des Bijoux de l‘Afrique du Nord, under ‘meskia’.

[4] Akam, F & A. Hanafi, 2003. La mode Ottomane dans les bijoux citadins, in: Bijoux & parures de’Algèrie, Somogy Editions d’Art, p. 37-41.

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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. 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.