AFRICAN BEADED JEWELLERY
Since ancient times, African peoples have cherished beads and appreciated their beauty. Made of various materials, beads are small, perforated, and often rounded objects found throughout the world. Beads have played an important role in the personal lives of Africans and in the court life of African kingdoms, being valued as currency and as an artistic medium. The materials used have varied over time, and include shells, stone, clay, metal, and glass.
The oldest jewelry ever discovered was found in a cave in South Africa and is believed to be over 74,000 years old. This knowledge spread across the continent, and archeological finds in Libya from around 12,000 years ago show the continued mastery of the craft as it evolved throughout the ages. The earliest examples of locally manufactured African beads are disk-shaped and made from ostrich eggshells. These date to around 10,000 B.C. and have been recovered from archaeological sites in Libya and Sudan.
The cultural significance of beadwork spread to ancient Kemet by 1500 BC. By the 1400s, this beadwork was often accepted as currency and the ornamental, ritual, spiritual, and ceremonial values of the craft made the beads highly valued possessions.
Some of the more commonly known styles of beadwork from the Masai tribe, for example, make use of beaded jewelry to represent status and tribal hierarchy based on the colors and layouts of the beadwork. The Masai women would treat their beaded jewelry as women in Europe would treat their dresses: as beautiful works of art used at important moments in life that were (and still are) passed down across generations. In Kenya and Uganda, the women of the Pokot tribe are widely recognized for wearing broad-beaded necklaces with distinct collars, while the Yoruba kings of Nigeria wore traditional beaded crowns of astounding complexity.
Beadwork has often been enhanced and complemented with bead like, brilliantly white cowrie shells, which have also served as currency and source of embellishment and have been widely traded throughout Africa. Stone beads, dated to the first millennium B.C., have been found near Nok, Nigeria; others, dated from the fifth to fifteenth centuries A.D., have been discovered at Djenne, Mali. Today, African beaded jewelry helps employ local women from these tribes. Ethnic beads for jewelry making have a rich tradition and heritage. These beautiful works represent a stunning example of how art connects us with our shared cultural past and heritage. They are more than just decorative: they are imbued with rich cultural and historical significance.
References
1. The Bead Chest (2014). "A Timeline History of African Beads". The Bead Chest. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
2. Dubin, Lois Sherr (2009). The History of Beads: From 100,000 B.C. to the Present. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 16. ISBN 978-0810951747.
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