Jewellery or jewelry (see spelling differences in American and British English) is a form of personal adornment, manifests itself as necklaces, rings, brooches, earrings and bracelets. Jewelry can be made of material, usually gemstones, precious metals or shellfish. Factors that influence the choice of materials, including cultural differences and availability of materials. Jewelry may be due to the nature of materials, designs or meaningful symbols appreciated. Jewelry is different from other items of personal adornment in that apart from looking attractive, it often has no other purpose. Items such as belts and bags are usually not considered jewelry accessories.
The word comes from the word jewel, which is Anglicised from the Old French “about jouel” the 13th century. Further tracing leads back to the Latin word “jocale”, means the toy. Jewelry is one of the oldest forms of body jewelry; have found only 100,000 yearsbeads made from Nassarius shells long regarded as the oldest jewelry.
Jewellery sometimes considered as a means of storing wealth and also may have some minimal functions, such as holding a garment together, or save the hair in place. This is from a very early period regarded as a form of personal adornment. The first part of the jewelry made of natural materials, such as bone, animal teeth, shells, wood and stone carving. Some of the jewelry throughout the ages may have been specifically as an indication of the social group. More often exotic jewelry for the rich, with increased scarcity value. Because of personal and corporate indication of social class, who founded several cultural traditions of burying the dead with their jewelry.
Jewellery have been made to adorn nearly every body part, from hairpins to the ring feet and more types of jewelry. While high-quality jewels made with precious gemstones and metals, like silver or gold, there is also a demand for art jewelry where design and creativity is valued above material value. In addition, there is a cheaper costume jewelry, made from a lower value and produced in bulk. Other variations include wire sculpture (wrap) jewelry, using anything from metal wire with rock rock fall into the precious metals and precious gemstones.