Pearls - Legend and History

Pearls are one of the oldest types of gems, and continue to be favorite today. Some legends and history about pearls:

• The oldest surviving piece of pearl jewelry is a necklace that was found buried with a Persian Princess. It is estimated to be over 2000 years old.
• Historians believe pearls were worn in old Middle East and Asian societies 3500 years ago.
• They were extremely regarded in old Rome and very valuable. A Roman general reportedly sold one pearl earring and financed an entire soldiery campaign with the earnings.
• Legend has it that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, dissolved a pearl in wine and drank it to prove her love for the Roman Marc Antony.
• The Bible refers to pearls some times.
• The old Greeks valued them not only for their beauty, but for their associations with love and marriage.
• The Medieval world valued them and they were worn not only by women but by knights going to battle. These knights believed that pearls could protect them from harm.
• In Renaissance Europe, some countries passed laws forbidding anyone but the nobility to wear pearls or have them in their possession.
• The old Inca and Aztec cultures valued them for their attractiveness and magical powers.
• Native American men and women of the Atlantic coast and Mississippi river region wore freshwater pearl pendants and earrings.
• The discovery of pearls in the waters off Central America brought great wealth to Europe during the years of expansion. The 'pearl rush ' was so great that roughly all of the American pearl oyster people was gone by the end of the 17th century.
• Famous French jeweler Jacques Cartier traded two pearl necklaces for considerable property on New York's preponderant Fifth Avenue, and built his preponderant jewelry store there in 1916.
• Pearls remained very costly and only the very wealthy could afford them until the early 20th century when pearl cultivation began.

Pearls

Pearls - Legend and History

Pearls - Legend and History

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