Jewellery :

Jewellery (jewelry in American English) is any piece of fine material used to adorn the human body. The word jewellery is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicised from the Old French "jouel" in around the 13th century.

Further tracing leads back to the Latin word "jocale", meaning plaything. Jewellery has probably been around since the dawn of man indeed, recently found 100,000 year-old Nassarius shells that were made into beads are thought to be the oldest known jewellery.

Although in earlier times jewellery was created for more practical uses, such as wealth storage and pinning clothes together, in recent times it has been used almost exclusively for decoration. The first pieces of jewellery were made from natural materials, such as bone, animal teeth, shell, wood, and carved stone.

Jewellery was often made for people of high importance to show their status and, in many cases, they were buried with it.

Jewellery is made out of almost every material known and has been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings and many more types of jewellery.

While high-quality and artistic pieces are made with gemstones and precious metals, less-costly costume jewellery is made from less-valuable materials and is mass-produced.

Form and function

Jewellery has been used for a number of reasons:

· Currency, wealth display and storage,
· Functional use (such as clasps, pins, and buckles)
· Symbolism (to show membership or status)
· Protection (in the form of amulets and magical wards), and
· Artistic display

Most cultures have at some point had a practice of keeping large amounts of wealth stored in the form of jewellery. Numerous cultures move wedding dowries in the form of jewellery, or create jewellery as a means to store or display coins. Alternatively, jewellery has been used as a currency or trade good a particularly poignant example being the use of slave beads.

Many items of jewellery, such as brooches and buckles originated as purely functional items, but evolved into decorative items as their functional requirement deminished.