gems, ancient jewelry, ancient gems, ancient trade, commerce, ancient jewelry technology, ancient goldsmithing, Islamic goldsmithing, Islamic metalwork, Fatimid, Cairo, Egypt

In most cultures throughout the long history of art, jewelry crafted from the noblest of all metals was an important element of costume, especially for women but often also for men. As such, gold jewelry was presumably in constant use throughout the life of the cultures where it was made and where it was highly coveted as an element of adornment, and must have been subject to many of the same changes in fashion we have witnessed during our own lifetimes. Jewelry, like ceramics and other media, should therefore be an ever-present yet constantly changing guide to the time and place of manufacture. However, this is not so as regards the gold jewelry of the Islamic world; for although much of the jewelry has survived, dated pieces and those bearing inscriptions that would permit a secure attribution to a particular provenance are practically nonexistent, and as most of the extant pieces were unearthed in clandestine excavations, the possibility of determining the age and provenance from context has been lost forever. The would-be historian of Islamic jewelry is thus faced with a relatively large body of material containing few objects of secure date and provenance with which to reconstruct the history of the jewelry of the Muslim world. This article will first present one of the few groups of Islamic jewelry that can be placed in a firm historical context. Then, with the objects in this group as a basis on which to build, other pieces related either by construction techniques, iconographical motifs, or both will be added to them; and the resulting, considerably enlarged, group will be presented as a series of subtypes heretofore unrecognized. Finally, the influence exerted by this important group on the jewelry of other periods and countries will be briefly discussed.