Egyptian Jewellery
Copper, Silver, Gold
Recently I've been creating a lot of copper jewellery pieces, in part because copper is a beautiful metal with the benefit of being highly affordable, but also to get some practice in before I began unleashing my skills on more expensive-to-mess-up gold and silver pieces.
Hence the jewellery collection at Taylor Two now contains quite a number of new pieces that I've noticed have a Egtypian vibe to them. This is completely accidental as for me creating jewellery is rather an organic process where I just create what comes to me at the time rather than planning a particular theme or style for an item.
The ancient Egyptians placed huge value on personal adornment and jewellery was worn by just about everyone from every social strata, men and women alike. The most popular materials for crafting jewellery in Egypt were copper, gold and silver.
Below I've showcased a video of our Egyptian style Silver Filled Adjustable ring. This ring has a real Egyptian vibe to it's shaping (note the Egyptian eye-like swirls), and looks best when worn with the swirls curling up the side of the finger.
Common jewellery pieces worn by ancient Egyptians included earrings, bracelets, armbands, collar pieces, rings and anklets. The most common and indeed iconic was the wide collar necklace; often adorned with beads and gemstones and stretching over the entire collarbone to breast.
Protective amulates were also popular and often took the form of an ornamental scarab beetle, which was believed to hold magical and religious properties. Other charms and protective amulates included images of Gods, magical signs, hieroglyphs and animals.
Copper, Gold and Silver
In terms of the metals used in jewellery making, as I've mentioned already, it was copper, gold and silver.
Copper was typically worn by the masses and the upper classes or gentry wore gold and silver. Egyptian gold and copper was mined in the deserts of Nubia and were in abundant supply, however silver was far rarer and needed to be imported.
Gemstones
The most lavish pieces of Egyptian jewellery were inlaid with gemstones, including semi precious gemstones. Popular gemstones included lapis lazuli, turquoise, garnet, carnelian, obsidian and rock crystal.
Emeralds and pearls are native to Egypt and so these were used abundantly in Egyptian jewellery making.
Egyptian Style Gift Guide
Gold Hieroglyphics Wrapping Paper (they also have the same pattern on a cushion)
