Handmade Portuguese Filigree 925 Golden Silver Shell with Pearl Earrings

Handmade Portuguese Filigree 925 Golden Silver Shell with Pearl Earrings – Materials & Techniques: Golden Silver 925 Filigree (Handmade) – Date the piece was created: 21th century – Dimensions: 2.0*1.5 cm (0.79*0.59 inches) – Weight: 2.3g (0.08 oz) – Countryof Origin: Portugal – Hallmarks of all jewelry attributions: Golden Silver 925 – Oporto portuguese contrast The origin of the filigree dates back to the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia. The oldest pieces date from 2500 BC and were discovered in the graves of Ur, in present-day Iraq. Other pieces, discovered in Syria, date from approximately 2100 B.C. It arrived in Europe via trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, where it became relatively popular in the Greek and Roman civilizations. The oldest discoveries of filigree jewelery were made in modern Italy and are estimated to be from the 19th century. XVIII BC It was also during the Roman Empire that the word “filigree” originated: the oldest discoveries were made in modern Italy, and date back to the century. XVIII B.C. However, since the Middle East was a crossroads of cultures, the filigree continued its journey and crossed borders to India and China. In the Far East, it was used mainly as a decorative element and not as jewelery. We find, for example, sculptures covered in filigree, teapots, plates or boxes. Of course, the filigree of this remote time was not the same as we know today: the patterns were different, as well as the use. But the similarity of the techniques used leaves no room for doubt – we were able to identify these secular pieces as exemplars of filigree. So, what distinguishes the watermark? Simple, the way different fine threads draw patterns and are welded together to create a much larger piece. No other jewelery art uses a similar fusion technique to join gold threads. Today – as thousands of years ago – the different threads that make up each piece come together only by heat, without resorting to any other material or alloy. We can also say that there is no other jewelery technique in which so few metals are used to create such large and extraordinary shapes. In some filigree hearts, for example, half the “surface” of the piece can be air! The oldest filigree pieces discovered in the Iberian Peninsula date back to 2000 – 2500 BC, but their origin is unclear. Possibly, these pieces belonged to merchants or navigators from the Middle East and were not manufactured here. Only during the rule of the Romans, during the century. II BC, mining began to exist in the Peninsula – out of curiosity, it was during this period that the mines of the Pia and Banja mountains, in Gondomar, began to be explored. But only thousands of years later, in the century. A.D. VIII, we were able to ensure with certainty that the filigree was being developed and produced in Portugal. It was with the arrival of Arab peoples that new patterns emerged and that, little by little, the filigree of the Peninsula began to differentiate itself from the filigree of other parts of the world. While in neighboring Spain the tradition of filigree has been lost, in Portugal it has been refined. From the century. XVII, the Portuguese filigree already had its own imagery and molds very different from any other filigree.