Jewelry with a connection to a past time has always been popular. Egyptian jewelry has always been popular and is going through a resurgence in renewed popularity. There has always been a bit of magic about Egyptian stuff and a degree of mystery. Maybe it is because the Egyptians had a religion all to themselves with it’s surrounding mysteries or maybe because it is the extreme wealth of the Egyptians that is reflected in everything they did. Because the Egyptians were incredibly wealthy they were able to adorn themselves with gold jewelry that reflected their culture and all of their superstitions.
The Egyptians were very creative in their designs and used gold abundantly as a base. Then they decorated with silver and amethyst as well as quartz and jasper. Their creative designs have yet been unmatched in sheer brilliance. Because of the rich religious beliefs that were tied to their culture, the jewelry was mostly based on symbolism. We find things like green jade being linked to fertility and the re-birth by the scarab. If you were a nobleman and died then you would be buried with jewelry with the scarab to represent your re-birth. That would be with you in your tomb to help you on the way back to life.
The ankh is also an important symbol in Egyptian jewelry. This represented by the cross with a loop on top and is a symbol for life. This is linked into Egyptian gods and is called key of life. We also come across the cartouche which was the magical oval. This something that a Pharaoh would wear with his name inscribed on it. This was to guarantee perpetual life for the Pharaoh and can still be seen used today.
What about the flower of life which is another of these perpetual life type things. It seems that the Egyptians were obsessed with living forever and tried to bring that about by the wearing of all sorts of jewelry that was supposed to have magical powers. Judging by all the mummies we dig up today it seems many of them were very disappointed.
There have been lots of movies made around the magic of Egypt and the tombs and generally the whole culture has a magical attraction to it. This is why Egyptian style jewelry is still popular today. We just want to be part of that ancient mysterious culture. A culture seeped in rich and famous and gold and all things expensive.
And why not. If we can’t have it all today we can still live our little bit of the past with a piece of Egyptian style jewelry.