ALL NAVARATNA COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE Navaratna in Sanskrit means ‘jewel with nine stones’, where nava stands for nine and ratna for jewel; together with the saptaratna, seven gems, the pancharatna, five gems and the triratna, three gems, is part of a collection of amulets made by combining the stones in order to protect the bearer. The tradition of jewelry created by combining different stones originates in countries like India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia .
ALL AFRICAN COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE Most wonderful jewels have been manufactured in Africa since prehistoric times. The most ancient one is a necklace found in Morocco, in the Pigeon Cave of Taforlat, dating 82.000 years ago, and consisting in seashells of similar shape and size, dyed in red ochre pigments, drilled, and strung in a natural fibre thread (leather, tow, horse- or vegetable hair). Africa is a most wide continent, .
ALL CELTIC COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE Celtic culture seems to have been already formed around the third millennium B.C.E. It represented the most important center of population in Europe during the Iron Age, and already classical sources were using the term “Celtic” (from the Greek Ksltoi or Ksltai) to describe a population speaking an Indo-European language. In their period of highest splendor (the IV-III centuries B.C.E.), the Celts were spread across a .
ALL SOUTH AMERICAN COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in America, introducing to Europe previously unknown populations and cultures, but at the same time, the greed in the courts of the Old Continent caused, in a few decades, the collapse of those same civilizations. Jewelry-making and the art of working gold and other precious metals did not escape from this fate and in the course of .
ALL MEDITERRANEAN AND EUROPEAN JEWELRY COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE The Mediterranean basin or the sea between “our lands” or Mare Nostrum, has always been the cradle and forge of a culture and handicraft that, notwithstanding the variety of people who live in it, maintains a basic foundation that can be considered a note of communal vibrancy. The waters of the Mediterranean have always been an optimal vehicle for the exchange of .
ALL NATIVE AMERICANS COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE Stories retold and passed down and archeological ruins testify to the great importance that the Native Americans attributed to jewelry in everyday life and, for millennia, they produced necklaces, pendants, bracelets, rings, earrings and buttons. The indigenous tribes of North America are multiple and various, with idioms and cultures that are often different from each other. Also religion changes from one tribe .
ALL ORIENTAL COLLECTION ONLINE FOR SALE Asia is a most wide and mysterious continent, with different climates and mythical populations going back thousands of years: horsemen of the steppes, nomads of the Middle East, sumptuous Indian palaces, head hunters of the jungles, monks living on the “Roof of the World”, and imperial China splendours. Nomadic and semi-nomadic populations living in and moving through Asia use to wear and carry their .
In ancient primitive cultures, at the occurrence of any event that upset the normal flow of the existence of a community, people turned to a special individual, equipped with special magical abilities, able to cure disease and predict the future: that is, the shaman, men, and sometimes women, with qualities of healers and mystics, able to help those who needed it.The shaman is a mystic who challenges the unknown and .
ALL HMONG PRODUCTS ONLINE FOR SALE The Hmong people are an ethnic minority native of China that, in past centuries, moved to the southern and populated regions of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to their own aspirations for autonomy and territorial independence (the name Hmong in their language, means “free”). The interest in these people arises from the beauty of their products, which is expressed both in traditional clothing and .
ALL ITEMS WITH DORJE SYMBOL ONLINE FOR SALE In Tibetan Buddhism, full of symbols and ritual objects, extensive attention has been given to the meaning of the word Dorje, in Tibetan, or Vajra, in Sanskrit: the lightning, or diamond, that destroys all kinds of ignorance, being itself indestructible, principle of spiritual and mental liberation, on which the philosophy of Tibet is based. The Dorje represents the firmness of spirit and the achievement of .
ALL ORIENTAL RINGS ONLINE FOR SALE Since the most remote ages, an essential wire shaped as a circle and called ring has accompanied men’s and women’s daily life. Made with the most diverse materials, iron at the beginning, later on with various other components such as gold, silver, stone, glass, fibres, wood, bone, according to the different places and cultures, this object has always attracted people’s interest. This simple ornament .
On September 22nd is celebrated, according to the calendar of the Wheel of the Year, the second autumn harvest festival: MABON, the autumn equinox. After the spring equinox of Ostara, now once again the passage of time stands still in balance, with day and night of equal length: but now the nights become longer and the days shorten gradually; this is also the Sabbath of the Mysteries, associated with .
At the end of October, in the Celtic calendar of the Wheel of the Year, we encounter the best known, remembered and important festival for the culture from which it originates: SAMHAIN, Gaelic expression that stands for the winter season and that in archaic Irish language is translated into the name of the month of November. Originally, this anniversary took its beginning from an ancient Celtic festival of paganism, from .
ALL BUDDHIST MALA ROSARY ONLINE FOR SALE In the tradition and history of many cultures and religions, the use of special instruments as a support in man’s path to the Divine has always been of great interest, filled with a particular symbolic value. One of the most significant, popular and commonly known of such instruments is undoubtedly the ROSARY: very often associated to the solely Christian liturgy, it actually originates from Asia, where we find .
In the southern region of Mexico, and specifically in the state of Oaxaca, overlooking the Pacific Ocean at about 1550 meters above sea level, lies the homonymous town. Capital of one of the country’s poorest states, the city of Oaxaca is nestled in the valley that bears its name; inhabited since ancient times, different cultures followed each other in this area: the Olmecs, which had their heyday from 1200 b.c to 500 .
The Spring Equinox was celebrated on March 21, when day and night are of equal length, in a perfect balance of Light and Dark. It was known as the Wiccan Sabbat of Ostara, or Oestara, Eostar or even Eostre, from which the German “Ostern” and the English “Easter” derive, or Alban Eiler, “Light of the Earth”. This recurrence, particularly felt in ancient Mediterranean cultures, celebrated the return of Persephone from Hades upon the earth, .
Already 4000 years ago, in Tibet and Nepal took shape and spread one of the oldest cult, bon or bon-po, from which later developed what became one of the most important and professed religion, Buddhism. Closely related to Buddhist tradition, and Tibetan in particular, is a small object of great symbolic power and extraordinary prestige: the dzi, or gzhi, pronounced zii –bright, light, brilliance– is made with a fragment of agate, usually cylindrical or .
The use of ritual objects associated with many religious practices has always been part of all cultures, with obvious differences due to the specific conditions of each population.Typical of the ancient nomads groups of the Eurasian steppe is the use of the skull, usually human, but often also of goat or monkey: kapala in Sanskrit, in Tibetan thod pa. This tool, shaped like a cup or a mug, is a peculiar characteristic .
From time immemorial, the sound has had a significant and symbolic value as few other elements: considered a primordial principle, it is closely related to the verb, which is considered the source and beginning of everything. This concept is present in many religious practices, where the sound is considered a means to communicate with the Divine: just think of the recitation of the rosary, where the uttering of words in the repetition of prayers .
ALL THE PRODUCTS WITH SKULL ONLINE FOR SALE The skull, a recurring motif in the classical iconography of many cultures, is definitely a most controversial one. If at first glance it may seem to express a negative value of Death, in folk traditions of Tibet, Ladakh, India, South America (although in a more complex environment: suffice it to think of the Day of the Dead in Mexico), as well as in Celtic .
ALL TIBETAN JEWELS ONLINE FOR SALE In Tibet, as in all countries where jewels have not only an aesthetic function but a symbolic andapotropaic value, jewelry accumulate on clothes. Most of the jewelry is in fact made with symbolic stones and organic elements, both selected for their protective, miraculous and religious powers. Therefore amulets and pendants are often reliquaries that contain spells, incantations and prayers. The reliquary pendants may have various forms: round, .
ALL NEPALESE JEWELS ONLINE FOR SALE The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is located in South Asia bordering the Himalayas, People’s Republic of China and India. Placed in this position, the Nepalese culture, although possessing highly autonomous and distinctive traits, constitutes also an area where the iconographic elements are shared by other neighboring cultures. It is a densely populated area where about a third of the population is still illiterate nowadays. The practiced religion .
JEWELS COMING FROM CHINA ONLINE FOR SALE China has 1 billion and 300 million inhabitants; of these, 92% belong to the Han Chinese population while the remaining 8% is divided into as many as 55 different ethnic groups, withdifferent culture, tradition and language. Therefore speaking of Chinese jewelry itself is a forced generalization that necessarily involves a further analysis which falls into the specifics of the various ethnic minority groups. This work is .
Omara “Bombino” Moctar, whose given name is Goumour Almoctar, was born on January 1, 1980, in Tidene, Niger, an encampment of nomadic Tuaregs located about 80 kilometers to the northeast of Agadez. He is a member of the Ifoghas tribe, which belongs to the Kel Air Tuareg federation. His father is a car mechanic and his mother takes care of the home, as is the Tuareg tradition. Bombino was .
It arrived in a massive wooden crate, the size of a twin bed — 724 pounds of sandstone dating from the fourth to sixth century CE. This double-sided stele on loan from the National Museum in Yangon, Myanmar, is one of approximately 70 works of art currently on display at Asia Society Museum, New York, in the spring exhibition Buddhist Art of Myanmar. The stele’s discovery and its significance are best .
Photos: Bruno Zanzottera Secret societies, in Africa, represent the traditional society, a kind of parallel authority. They reveal themselves through the masks appearance: every mask has its own meaning, and its appearance brings a clear message to the community members.“Masks talk. And listen to men and to their eternal thirst for life, their desire to live forever while they know they’re just men. Men in need to dominate .
Photos: Albertina d’Urso Before the Chinese occupation in 1949-50, Tibetans where estimated to be up to 6 million. Now in their original land live around 4.5 million people only. One million have been killed or died due to torture or starvation during the Chinese invasion, while the rest (the official number is 150.000, but they are supposed to be more) live as political refugees, scattered all around the world. .
Photos: Alvaro Laiz The Secret History of the Mongols, the oldest literary work written in the Mongolian language, tells how Gengis Khan was able to put under his control more than 30 fighting tribes, and how, once in power, he declared homosexuality immediately illegal in order to attempt to increase the population of his new empire. Today, more than 800 years later, Mongolia is an independent country with the .