Jewelryand Our Perceptions

Jewelry is basically an ordinary piece of metal that has been converted into something valuable and beautiful with the aid of creativity and design. Used as an adornment, jewelryis mostly linked withthe female species but with the open mindedness and the general feeling of acceptance, its use has been extended to men as well. Made out of metalsranging from gold, silver, platinum and bronze, titanium, tungsten carbide, stainless steel and rhodium, jewelryis made intodifferent shapes and sizes forming rings, brooches, necklaces, earrings and so on. Their beauty is enhanced by the integration of diamonds, gemstones and semi-precious stones in different colors. The purpose of using jewelryis dependent on the culture and the region. Normally, it is considered a very valuable thing and hence is believed to be one of the bases for status evaluation.

Possessed in large amounts by the monarchs, royals, politicians and the elite andrich class of this planet, it is also used in the form of currency. It is a general practice to collect jewelryto be used in futuresince the mainmetal that is common in all jewelryis gold which never loses its value and worth and whose price has been jumping leaps and bounds in the few past years. So in short it is seen as a form of investment and a very good one. In some culture, it is considered as a major part of the dowries(specifically South East Asian and Middle East countries), a sort of settlement given to girls upon their marriage to maintain a better standard of living. Back in the Mughal times, when a new king used to come to the throne, he used to be weighed (literally) in comparison to gold and enough gold used to be placed on the balance to make his side lighter and rise above; hence determining his worth as well!All in all, jewelrysymbolizes status hence the more you have; the more elevated is your position in the society.

Jewelryis also perceived as objects which can lay off part spirits. In other words it is used for magic and protection purposes such as amulets. The stones and gems used within them are believed to possess metaphysical power to grant you protection from evil and the ’bad eye’. It can be any sort of protection; physical, psychological, spiritual emotional and so on but one thing that cannot be denied is that such practices have been taking place for a long time for example amber was used extensively for protection by the ancient Romans and golden amulets by the ancient Egyptians for good luck charm. In later years, the study of jewelryhas even expanded into a professional field pertaining to jewelrydesigning, analysis and understanding. Consisting of well laid out program and semester courses, young student study the art of jewelryso intensely and scientifically that the hard work involved certainly rivals any other profession in spirit let it be medicine or engineering.