More About Jewelry
Jewelry is a personal ornament, such as a necklace, ring, or bracelet, made from gemstones, precious metals or other materials.
The word jewelry is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicised from the Old French "jouel" around the 13th century. Further tracing leads back to the Latin word "jocale", meaning plaything. Jewelry is one of the oldest forms of body adornment; recently found 100,000 year-old beads made from Nassarius shells are thought to be the oldest known jewelry.
Although during earlier times jewelry was created for practical uses such as wealth storage and pinning clothes together, in recent times it has been used almost exclusively for decoration. The first pieces of jewelry were made from natural materials, such as bone, animal teeth, shell, wood, and carved stone. Jewelry was often made for people of high importance to show their status and, in many cases, they were buried with it.
Jewelry is made out of almost every material known and has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings and many more types of jewelry. While high-quality is made with gemstones and precious metals, there is also a growing demand for Art jewelry where design and creativity is prized above material value. In addition, there is the less-costly costume jewelry, made from less-valuable materials and mass-produced. New variations include wire sculpture (wrap) jewelry, using anything from base metal wire with rock tumbled stone to precious metals and precious gemstones.
Jewelry has been used for a number of reasons:
Most cultures have at some point had a practice of keeping large amounts of wealth stored in the form of jewelry. Numerous cultures move wedding dowries in the form of jewelry, or create jewelry as a means to store or display coins. Alternatively, jewelry has been used as a currency or trade good; an example being the use of slave beads.
Handmade jewelry is jewelry which has been assembled and formed by hand rather than through the use of machines. According to the guidelines of the FTC, in order to be stamped or called "handmade" the work must be made without the use of electricity except for polishing Beyond that caveat it can be anything made out of anything that would be considered jewelry.