Artificial pearl
Artificial pearls are made from a variety of materials (often minerals ) and using a variety of methods. They are provided with holes and used as jewelry - for example, threaded onto chains and necklaces, sewn onto fabric or used for handicrafts.
Prehistory of the artificial pearl
Ancient pearls are centrally perforated objects of various shapes for threading. They were initially tubular or flat discs. When spheres could be made, this shape prevailed. Later, more stable materials such as bones , antlers , minerals ( callaï pearls ), shells , teeth or fossils such as fossil wood ( gagat ) were used.
Ancient pearl finds
The oldest pieces of human jewelry are three between 90,000 and 100,000 year old pearls from the pierced snail shells of Nassariidae . Two of the pearls come from the Skhul Cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel . The third comes from Oued Djebbana in Algeria . The pea-sized pearls have drilled holes that make it possible to incorporate them into a necklace or bracelet.
The oldest jewelry finds in Europe come from the transition to the Upper Paleolithic (around 37,000 BC). They were made in La Quina in France and are made from animal teeth and bones that were worn as a pendant. In Châtelperronian pearl diving worldwide, albeit in small numbers. Larger quantities were only found in Europe and in the Zhoukoudian cave in China . In the Aurignacien and Gravettien new manufacturing techniques developed. Bones, mammoth ivory and fossilized wood were cut into pearls and decorated with incised patterns. At that time most of the pearls were already perforated. Perforated snail shells were sewn onto clothing. In Sungir ( Russia ) contained 23,000 years old tombs from mammoth ivory beads that were sewn on clothes. In the area of today's Ukraine, the soft and therefore easy to work amber was processed into pearls around 20,000 years ago (excavations near Kaneva on the river Ros ). Amber beads from the Altamira Cave are of similar age. The late Upper Paleolithic brought an artistic advance in the design of the pearls. In Barma Grande , in the south of France , a collar made of three chains of symmetrically arranged herringbone vertebrae, shells and dog teeth was found. In Germany, ornamental snails that come from the Atlantic or Mediterranean indicate barter trade over great distances. Early pearl finds from Africa come from Haua Fteah in Libya and are dated to 10,000 BC. Dated. They are disks made from ostrich eggshells . In other areas of North Africa pierced stone beads, mostly from amazonite, appear.
In the Neolithic there was initially no need for jewelry that was not further developed. Nevertheless, there are new types of finds, such as flat, retouched and perforated flint chips in a rounded and scraper-shaped style with a diameter of about 2.5 cm. Many pearls are teardrop-shaped quartzites drilled with high precision . From 7000 BC BC pearls made of amber , copper and gold, shells and other materials ( necklace made from stone seeds ) occur. Faience and glass beads appear around 3000 BC. In the Middle East .
Manufacturing
There are numerous manufacturing processes, depending on the starting material and the desired appearance. Parts of plants and stones, which by themselves have a beautiful shape, are sometimes only provided with a hole and possibly colored. The machining techniques have been refined over time, and new tools have been used to machine ever harder materials. Discoveries such as glass and ceramics or the improvement of kilns were also incorporated.
Minerals, wood, bone and horn are brought into the desired shape by carving, grinding and drilling. Plastic beads are melted and pressed, which typically results in a burr that, in high-quality specimens, is ground off by turning in a large drum. Glass is heated and processed, for example, by turning it over a flame, pressing or drawing. The use of different techniques and glass in several colors creates patterned glass beads that can be very expensive.
Finally, artificial pearls can be polished, colored or painted. Special effects such as mirroring, the shimmer of real pearls or color effects that are similar to the play of light in rainbows or northern lights are achieved using special coatings. This makes it possible to produce imitations that come very close to real gemstones. Depending on the material and quality, the finish of artificial pearls can lose its beauty, bone pearls easily fade and the friction during wear can wear off the polish and coatings of the beads.
The drilling technique by hand emerged around 18,000 years ago. Later it was shot with a bowstring.
Ivory, bone and antler beads
Ivory, bone and antler beads were sculpted with burins . Other operations were piercing, grinding and polishing. In the Aurignacien there was the serial production of ivory pearls.
Lapis lazuli , turquoise beads
In the manufacture of pearls from lapis lazuli and turquoise, which began around 6500 BC. BC is established in the Middle East, one can already deduce the division of labor, which was divided into the dismantling of the material, transport and manufacture.
Chalcedony beads
Crushing and processing of chalcedony pebbles was carried out using the chipping technique, in which a core stone remains. The raw pieces were reduced by cuts on all sides and formed into rod-like structures, which were then cut into segments.
Pearls from the Sahara
The manufacture of pearls from carnelian , which is so hard that it can hardly be drilled with a modern drill, has been in the Sahara since 6500 BC. Occupied.
Pearl production in Gaimersheim
The manufacturing process in the Eichstätt district in Germany is from 4500 BC. Occupied. He began by breaking pebbles into polyhedral blanks. The cubes measuring 5–15 mm were first roughly ground, so that a raw bead was created. This was followed by the grinding of the flat sides and the faceting of the irregular edges. The platelets were ground hexagon to octagon. Then the corners were reworked until a round bead was created. Then the drilling took place. If the bead body was about two-thirds pierced, the counter-drilling took place. The last step consisted of smoothing all surfaces.
Pearl production in the lakeside settlements
Around 4000 BC BC, the people of the lakeside settlements in the foothills of the Alps cut barrel-shaped blanks from pieces of rock that were drilled through from both sides. By grinding on sandstone slabs, they got their final cylindrical shape.
Pearl production of the Indus culture
Were popular in Chanhu Daro around 3000 BC. BC almost 10 cm long, barrel-shaped beads made of agate and carnelian . The raw materials were sawed up, the rectangular pieces rounded and ground on sandstone. The pearl ends were picked and pierced. Using chemical processes, red carnelian pearls were provided with patterns by applying fine patterns with an alkaline soda solution. If the pearls were heated, the alkaline solution ate in and formed a white porcelain-like pattern on the red pearl. Another process involved coating the bead with a soda solution, heating it, turning it white, and applying the finest drawings with a copper nitrate solution on top to create deep black, indelible patterns. Glass pearls appeared in Europe through long-distance trading as early as the 3rd millennium.
materials
- Glass
- Glass beads are probably one of the most important types of artificial pearls. See main article glass bead
- Precious and semi-precious stones
- Fossil resins (amber, copal)
- Mainly used as a component in jewelry and prayer chains
- Wood
- Ceramics
- Lava rock
- metal
- made of steel , silver , gold or copper alloys , which are also gold-plated or silver-plated.
- Plant parts
- such as seeds, beans and nuts as well as shells (e.g. coconut)
- plastic
- can be edited in many different ways, which enables a great variety
- stone
- for example soapstone, pebbles, marble, granite
- Substances of animal origin
- Eggshells, ivory, horn, bones, corals, mussel shells, tortoise shell, snail shells, teeth
- Wax beads
- Consists of small, delicate, hollow glass spheres to which dyes or similar are attached from the inside and then the remaining cavity is filled with wax. They were invented by Jaquin in 1656 . They are lined with fish silver preparations (fish silver pearls), light-flowing alloys (mirror pearls) or colors mixed with gum arabic .
- Vegetable pearls (pearls of coconut )
- are very popular as jewelry with the Rajas in East India . They resemble pearl mussels , have a smooth, milk-white surface, have very little sheen and are found exposed in coconut hollows. They should essentially consist of carbonate of lime with a nitrogenous substance.
use
Artificial pearls are known from the Stone Age and have been worn as jewelry in all ages. How valuable an artificial pearl is depends on the particular culture and how difficult it is to make it. Therefore, expensive copies serve as a status symbol . At times, imitations of real gemstones made of glass or minerals were worn to simulate wealth. Artificial pearls are also used for religious purposes, for example in the form of the rosary , or serve as talismans such as the Nazar Eye , which is supposed to protect against the evil eye .
With industrialization , man-made pearls that were easy to produce became affordable for the general public, but there are still price differences that result from the material and manufacturing process and the quality as well as the artistic influence. Today beads are used in fashion jewelry and are individually available in stores.
In recent times it has become a popular handicraft to make jewelry from artificial pearls. In addition to the simple threading on tear-resistant thread or sheathed wire, the friends of this handicraft use techniques in which the thread is passed several times through the holes of the beads according to certain patterns. The result is flat or three-dimensional objects that always look slightly different due to the size and shape of the beads used. Herringbone, peyote and brick stitches are part of the so-called free pearl weaving, in which no loom is used. These techniques are very old, the brick engraving comes from ancient Egypt , and are easy to learn. Numerous magazines and books about the hobby explain traditional and new techniques.
Imitation pearls
Imitation pearls (such as fish silver pearls ) are used to try to imitate the real pearls . Consequently, artificial pearls are a generic term, which also includes imitation pearls.
literature
- Janet Coles, Robert Budwig: The Big Book of Pearls. (Translated from English by Beate Gorman.) Haupt, Bern and Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-258-04269-1 .
- Joan Erikson : The universal bead . Norton, New York 1969.
Web links
Notes and individual references
- ^ Paul Rincon: Study reveals 'oldest jewelery'. BBC News, June 22, 2006, accessed April 25, 2015 .
- ↑ IS Vassilishin & VIPantschenko: Bernstein in Ukraine. In: Amber - Tears of the Gods. Pp. 333-340, Bochum 1996.
- ↑ Perlen Poesie No. 1 2009, pp. 32 f.