Shell beads a hundred thousand years old
Jewellery is one of the oldest things people have made that has no practical use. Small sea-snail shells with holes pierced through them, strung and worn as BEADS, have been found at sites in Morocco, Algeria, Israel and South Africa dating back around 75,000 to more than 100,000 years. Some still carry traces of red ochre and wear marks from rubbing on a STRING.
Archaeologists treat them as some of the earliest evidence of symbolic thinking — of people deciding that something could stand for who they were. The same impulse runs through every NECKLACE and BRACELET since. The word is spelled jewelry in American English and jewellery in British English, and this page uses both.
What carats and sterling really mean
Pure GOLD is too soft for everyday jewellery; it bends and scratches easily. So it is mixed with other metals, and its purity is measured in carats out of 24. Twenty-four carat is pure gold, eighteen carat is 75 per cent, and nine carat, common in Britain, is only 37.5 per cent gold. Adding copper makes rose gold; adding silver and zinc or palladium makes it paler.
Sterling SILVER is 92.5 per cent silver, with the rest usually copper for strength. In Britain, precious-metal jewellery above a certain weight must by law be tested and stamped with a hallmark, a system that goes back to 1300 and is one of the oldest forms of consumer protection in the world. A CRYSTAL in costume jewellery is usually cut glass rather than a mineral, while a real GEMSTONE is a natural mineral, cut and polished — our rocks and minerals page covers where they form.
A diamond is forever was an advert
The idea that an engagement ring should hold a diamond owes a great deal to advertising. In 1947 a copywriter for the diamond company De Beers came up with the slogan A diamond is forever, and a long campaign tied diamonds to romance in the minds of a generation. Before then, engagement rings used many different stones.
Other traditions are older. Queen Victoria helped make the CHARM bracelet fashionable in the nineteenth century, and a BROOCH was once the everyday way to pin a cloak or shawl closed, long before it became purely decorative. A PENDANT hangs from a CHAIN, a BANGLE slips over the hand without a fastening, and an EARRING may be a hoop or a STUD.
Tips for a first piece
Most home jewellery making uses beads, WIRE and a few pairs of PLIERS: round-nose pliers to bend a LOOP, flat or chain-nose pliers to grip. The most common beginner mistake is opening a small metal ring by pulling its ends apart, which distorts it. The right way is to twist the ends sideways, one towards you and one away, then twist them back to close.
A CLASP joins the two ends of a necklace; a lobster clasp springs shut, and a toggle pushes a bar through a ring. Beads can be strung on THREAD with a KNOT between each one, the traditional way to string pearls, so if the strand breaks only one bead is lost. A final POLISH brings up the shine.