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Medieval Jewelry
The Middle Ages was a period that spanned approximately 1000 years and is normally restricted to Europe and the Byzantine Empire. The material remains we have from that time, including jewelry, can vary greatly depending on the place and time of their creation, especially as Christianity discouraged the burial of jewellery as grave goods, except for royalty and important clerics, who were often buried in their best clothes and wearing jewels. The main material used for jewellery design in antiquity and leading into the Middle Ages was gold. Many different techniques were used to create working surfaces and add decoration to those surfaces to produce the jewellery, including soldering, plating and gilding, repoussé, chasing, inlay, enamelling, filigree and granulation, stamping, striking and casting. Major stylistic phases include barbarian, Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian, Viking, and the Late Middle Ages, when Western European styles became relatively similar. Most style ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paar Prunkfibeln
The Paar is a river of Bavaria, Germany, a right tributary of the Danube. For several tens of kilometers it flows parallel to the Lech, at only a few km distance. Near Augsburg, the Paar leaves the Lech valley and turns north-east towards Ingolstadt. It flows into the Danube near Vohburg. Towns and municipalities along the Paar include Egling, Mering, Aichach, Schrobenhausen and Manching. See also *List of rivers of Bavaria A list of rivers of Bavaria, Germany: A * Aalbach *Abens * Ach * Afferbach * Affinger Bach * Ailsbach *Aisch * Aiterach *Alpbach *Alster * Altmühl *Alz * Amper * Anlauter * Arbach * Arbachgraben *Aschaff * Aschbach * Attel * Aubach, tributary of ... References Rivers of Bavaria Tributaries of the Danube Rivers of Germany {{Bavaria-river-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Button (clothing)
A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, or seashell. Buttons can also be used on containers such as wallets and bags. Buttons may be sewn onto garments and similar items exclusively for purposes of ornamentation. In the applied arts and craft, a button can be an example of folk art, studio craft, or even a miniature work of art. In archaeology, a button can be a significant artifact. History Buttons and button-like objects used as ornaments or seals rather than fasteners have been discovered in the Indian Indus Valley civilization during its Kot Diji phase (c. 2800–2600 BC), at the Tomb of the Eagles, Scotland (2200-1800 BC), and at Bronze Age sites in China (c. 2000–1500 BC) and Ancient Rome. Buttons made from seashell were used in the Indus Valley Civilization for orn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gemcutting
Lapidary (from the Latin ) is the practice of shaping stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems (including cameos), and faceted designs. A person who practices lapidary is known as a lapidarist. A lapidarist uses the lapidary techniques of cutting, grinding, and polishing. Hardstone carving requires specialized carving techniques. In modern contexts, a gemcutter is a person who specializes in cutting diamonds, but in older contexts the term refers to artists who produced hardstone carvings; engraved gems such as jade carvings, a branch of miniature sculpture or ornament in gemstone. By extension, the term ''lapidary'' has sometimes been applied to collectors of and dealers in gems, or to anyone who is knowledgeable in precious stones. Etymology The etymological root of the word 'lapidary' is the Latin word , meaning "stone".Douglas Harper (2014)Lapidary Online Etymology Dictionary In the 14th century, the term evolved from , me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facet
Facets () are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure. Gemstones commonly have facets cut into them in order to improve their appearance by allowing them to reflect light. Facet arrangements Of the hundreds of facet arrangements that have been used, the most famous is probably the round brilliant cut, used for diamond and many colored gemstones. This first early version of what would become the modern Brilliant Cut is said to have been devised by an Italian named Peruzzi, sometime in the late 17th century.Gems, 5th edition, Webster, 1995.Gemstones of the world, Schumann, 1977. Later on, the first angles for an "ideal" cut diamond were calculated by Marcel Tolkowsky in 1919. Slight modifications have been made since then, but angles for "ideal" cut diamonds are still similar to Tolkowsky's formula. Round brilliants cut befo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of very many genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in height. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening. Each polyp excretes an exoskeleton near the base. Over many generations, the colony thus creates a skeleton characteristic of the species which can measure up to several meters in size. Individual colonies grow by asexual reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning: polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously overnight, often around a full moon. Fertilized eggs form planulae, a mobile early form of the coral polyp which, when m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freshwater Pearl
Cultured freshwater pearls are pearls that are farmed and created using freshwater mussels. These pearls are produced in Japan and the United States on a limited scale, but are now almost exclusively produced in China. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires that farmed freshwater pearls be referred to as "freshwater cultured pearls" in commerce. Quality of cultured freshwater pearls is evaluated through a grading system of a series of A values, based on luster, shape, surface, colour and matching. Current and historic industry Pearls gathered in the wild from the Holarctic saltwater pearl mussel were important sources of pearls for modern jewelry, with Scotland a major source; this species is now endangered in most areas. Although the Japanese freshwater pearl industry has nearly ceased to exist, it has a normal historic place as the first country to cultivate whole freshwater pearls, which it did in Lake Biwa, using the Biwa pearly mussel (''Hyriopsis schlegeli''). The ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet (lignite)
Jet is a type of lignite, the lowest rank of coal, and is a gemstone. Unlike many gemstones, jet is not a mineral, but is rather a mineraloid. It is derived from wood that has changed under extreme pressure. The English noun ''jet'' derives from the French word for the same material, (modern French ), ultimately referring to the ancient town of Gagae. Jet is either black or dark brown, but may contain pyrite inclusions which are of brassy colour and metallic lustre. The adjective " jet-black", meaning as dark a black as possible, derives from this material. Origin Jet is a product of decomposition of wood from millions of years ago, commonly the wood of trees of the family Araucariaceae. Jet is found in two forms, hard and soft. Hard jet is the result of carbon compression and salt water; soft jet may be the result of carbon compression and fresh water. Despite the name they both occupy the same area of the Mohs scale with the difference being that soft jet is more likely to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of New Jersey'', Rutgers University Press, . Amber is used in jewelry and has been used as a healing agent in folk medicine. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents. Because it originates as a soft, sticky tree resin, amber sometimes contains animal and plant material as inclusions. Amber occurring in coal seams is also called resinite, and the term ''ambrite'' is applied to that found specifically within New Zealand coal seams. Etymology The English word ''amber'' derives from Arabic (ultimately from Middle Persian ''ambar'') via Middle Latin ''ambar'' and Middle French ''ambre''. The word was adopted in Middle English in the 14th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insular Art
Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe. Art historians usually group Insular art as part of the Migration Period art movement as well as Early Medieval Western art, and it is the combination of these two traditions that gives the style its special character. Most Insular art originates from the Irish monastic movement of Celtic Christianity, or metalwork for the secular elite, and the period begins around 600 with the combining of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon styles. One major distinctive feature is interlace decoration, in particular the interlace decoration as found at Sutton Hoo, in East Anglia. This is now applied to decorating new types of objects mostly copied from the Mediterranean world, above all the codex or book. The finest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia proper as a means of distinction. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, the whole of Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia, defying claims of the German-speaking inhabitants that regions with German-speaking majority should be included in the Republic of German-Austria. Between 1938 and 1945, these border regions were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland. The remainder of Czech territory became the Second ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kutná Hora
Kutná Hora (; medieval Czech: ''Hory Kutné''; german: Kuttenberg) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. The centre of Kutná Hora, including the Sedlec Abbey and its ossuary, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 because of its outstanding architecture and its influence on subsequent architectural developments in other Central European city centres. Since 1961, the town centre is also protected by law as an urban monument reservation, the fourth largest in the country. Administrative parts The town is made up of twelve town parts and villages: *Kutná Hora-Vnitřní Město *Hlouška *Kaňk *Karlov *Malín *Neškaredice *Perštejnec *Poličany *Sedlec *Šipší *Vrchlice *Žižkov Geography Kutná Hora is located about east of Prague. It lies on the Vrchlice stream. The eastern part of the municipal territory lies in a flat agricultural landscape of the Central Elbe Table lowland. The western part lies i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental ( native state), as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia (a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), forming a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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