“Apples of Gold”
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While diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, gold is forever. And in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, the Harry Oppenheimer Israel Diamond Museum, located within the Israeli Diamond Industry complex in Ramat Gan, paid tribute to the rich history of gold jewelry design in Israel with an exhibition of rare and ancient jewelry excavated at archaeological sites throughout Israel.
The exhibition took its name, Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver, from the King James Bible version of Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”
More than 100 pieces from the vast collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem and the Reuven and Edith Hecht Museum in Haifa were individually selected for display by curator Yehuda Kassif.
Some of the simple gold hoop earrings in the exhibit date to around 2500 B.C., and other pieces are from the Biblical period in the Holy Land.
By viewing these ancient pieces of jewelry, said Kassif, one can imagine the Biblical scene of the meeting between Abraham’s servant and Rebecca at the oasis water well. “He gives her some bracelets and jewelry and asks her about her household. From here it is a short jump to Rebecca becoming a matriarch of the Jewish people,” said Kassif. “Even though we don’t have those actual bracelets, a glimpse at the earrings and bracelets from that period that we do have in the exhibit immediately brings up those images of our earliest forefathers.”
Later pieces in the exhibit include a small, detailed, Hellenistic hoop earring in the shape of a woman with wings—perhaps a goddess—as well as gold sheets from Roman diadems, a Roman-Byzantine gold ring with an engraved carnelian gemstone depicting Tyche, the Roman goddess of fortune and prosperity and patroness of sailors, and intricately designed filigree earrings and pendants from the Fatimid and Ottoman periods.
“The role of jewelry in the lives of people has not changed since they departed from the Garden of Eden and decided they were not satisfied with their bodies,” said Kassif. “Sometimes jewelry is used as a clothing accessory and sometimes it is used as a form of advertising that you belong to a certain group or as a declaration of the completion of a life-cycle event.”
Jewelry was worn by all segments of society—ranging from the kings and rulers to simple farmers—including men, women and children, he said.
While all of the pieces were found in archaeological digs in Israel, the precise origins of all of the pieces is not known because Israel was a commercial crossroads at the time, said Nurit Shohat, education director of the museum.
The complex and realistic methods used to create the pieces range from double-wire filigree to the ancient techniques of “chasing and repousse,” or embossing and granulation, which involves the soldering of tiny gold balls onto sheets of gold. These details make the pieces nothing less than miniature works of art and sculpture with which to adorn one’s body, said Kassif. The exhibit includes enlarged photographs of some of the jewelry in order to emphasize the precise efforts which were invested to produce each piece, said Shohat.
“The big ‘secret’ of the exhibit is how these ancient jewelry makers managed to create these magnificent pieces with their simple know-how and the primitive tools they had at hand,” she said. “Jewelers today would certainly need lots of skill to be able to do such work.”
Pointing to one pair of earrings set with rows of dangly emerald and garnet gemstones from the Roman period, Shohat remarked: “Nothing has changed in the design of jewelry from these periods. Some of these pieces look like they were just taken out of the display cases at a modern jewelry store.”—Judith Sudilovsky, Jerusalem
While diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, gold is forever. And in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, the Harry Oppenheimer Israel Diamond Museum, located within the Israeli Diamond Industry complex in Ramat Gan, paid tribute to the rich history of gold jewelry design in Israel with an exhibition of rare and ancient jewelry excavated at archaeological sites throughout Israel. The exhibition took its name, Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver, from the King James Bible version of Proverbs 25:11: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” More than 100 […]
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