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Wearing of amulets and devotional medals to provide protection or to ward off evil is common in some cultures. Jewellery can symbolise group membership (as in the case, of the Christian crucifix or the Jewish Star of David) or status (as in the case of chains of office, or the Western practice of married people wearing wedding rings). Many items of jewellery, such as brooches and buckles, originated as purely functional items, but evolved into decorative items as their functional requirement diminished. Alternatively, jewellery has been used as a currency or trade good. Numerous cultures store wedding dowries in the form of jewellery or make jewellery as a means to store or display coins. Most cultures at some point have had a practice of keeping large amounts of wealth stored in the form of jewellery.

as a carrier or symbol of personal meaning – such as love, mourning, a personal milestone or even luck.

to provide talismanic protection (in the form of amulets).

as a signifier of some form of affiliation, whether ethnic, religious or social.as a marker of social status and personal status, as with a wedding ring.functional, generally to fix clothing or hair in place.Humans have used jewellery for a number of different reasons: An example of an object which is functional, artistic/decorative, marker of social status or a symbol of personal meaning. In French and a few other European languages the equivalent term, joaillerie, may also cover decorated metalwork in precious metal such as objets d'art and church items, not just objects worn on the person.Ī gold, diamonds and sapphires red guilloché enamel ' Boule de Genève', a type of pendant watch used as an accessory for women. Both are used in Canadian English, though jewellery prevails by a two to one margin. In British English, Indian English, New Zealand English, Hiberno-English, Australian English, and South African English it is spelled jewellery, while the spelling is jewelry in American English. The word jewellery itself is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicised from the Old French ' jouel', and beyond that, to the Latin word ' jocale', meaning plaything. In modern European culture the amount worn by adult males is relatively low compared with other cultures and other periods in European culture. Jewellery has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings, and even genital jewellery. In most cultures jewellery can be understood as a status symbol, for its material properties, its patterns, or for meaningful symbols. Gemstones and similar materials such as amber and coral, precious metals, beads, and shells have been widely used, and enamel has often been important. Jewellery may be made from a wide range of materials. The basic forms of jewellery vary between cultures but are often extremely long-lived in European cultures the most common forms of jewellery listed above have persisted since ancient times, while other forms such as adornments for the nose or ankle, important in other cultures, are much less common. Jewellery is one of the oldest types of archaeological artefact – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery. For many centuries metal such as gold often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as glass, shells and other plant materials may be used. From a western perspective, the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. Jewellery ( Commonwealth English) or jewelry ( American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks.

Various examples of jewellery throughout history

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