Jewelry In Mesopotamia, Greece

Jewelry has been worn by people in almost every civilization around the globe in every century. These accessories can often tell a lot about a civilization. One can especially compare the jewelry of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome to get an accurate idea of the time period and how people's customs evolved within that area and that time. Jewelry in ancient times were very similar in that they were often made of identical materials, showed status of the people living within a society and the sophistication of the civilization itself; however, the way the jewelry was produced and complexity of the design changed with time.

The first common feature that most notice in the sample of jewelry is that five of the six pieces have gold incorporated

into them. All five pieces are the oldest five in the set of six. Only one of the five is fully made of gold, the other four are made with other gemstones too. If the jewelry incorporates gemstones, they are often rare and exotic such as emerald, turquoise and carnelian. The only piece of jewelry that does not contain any gold is the most recently made one from Rome. This piece is made from copper, which can still be seen as been a somewhat valuable material to use like gold. In general, most of the jewelry used rare gold and gemstones, besides the last which used copper.
It is also easy to tell that the jewlery showed the status of both the civilization and the people living in the civilization. One of the pieces of jewelry, the headdress, was made out gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian in Mesopotamia around 2500 BC (‘Headdress’, MMA website). However, neither of those metals or gemstones are found in the Mesopotamian region, which means that the people of Mesopotamia widely traded, which further means that Mesopotamia was a prosperous and sophisticated civilization. Because these materials were often rare in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome it is likely that having jewlery showed that you had status and wealth. A common theme in all of the jewelry, was that the wealthier people were the ones most likely to wear it. The headdress was found on a women in a tomb and the broad collar was used by pharoahs. However, the brooch found in Rome from 200 BC was often worn by soldiers, which suggests that wearing jewelry became more common among all classes in later centuries.
The one major change seen throughout all the jewelry, was that the jewelry style became more complex as time went by.

The oldest two pieces of jewelry were from Mesopotamia. The oldest, the headdress was made around 2500 BC and the second oldest, a head of a female wearing a necklace was made in the 9th- 8th century BC. Even within these two pieces of jewelry, one can tell that people began to make their jewelry more intricately with time because there are more beads shown in the necklace than in the headdress. The miniature broad collar found in Egypt made around 300 BC is much more elaborate than the two prior pieces. The pair of gold earrings found in Greece made around 300 BC do not include gemstones like the prior three examples of jewelry, but used much more complex details in the way the gold is shaped. The fifth oldest piece of jewelry, the gold armband is also quite intricate by using both gemstones and transforming the shape of the gold. The final piece of jewelry, the brooch, is the most different of all the jewelry in the set. It was made in Rome from around 100-300 AD. This piece is much different, because it is not made of gold, like all the others, but is made of copper. Even though it is not made of gold, it is much more innovative and complex than all the other jewelry because it was made by using a new process called the niello process to create a cat, the most complex figure on a piece of jewelry in the whole set (MMA).

Overall, the six pieces of jewelry in this set shows that Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome took a lot of pride and effort in their jewelry. The jewelry was continuously changing to become more complex as time went by. All of the jewelry was made by using the most innovative techniques of their own time period and by using metals and gemstones valued in each

society.