It's now reasonably certain that man existed at least 6 million years ago. His earliest attempts must have been towards self-preservation and survival. But it's interesting to note that creative and artistic expressions in terms of personal adornment and jewelry came before language whether written or spoken. Antique jewelry discovered in a South African cave in Blombos confirms the use of mollusk in jewelry almost 100,000 years back. These mollusk shells had evidently been strung together in the form of beads. For very obvious reasons jewelry in ancient times was invariably made from teeth and bones of animals and birds, shell, wood, stone and animal hide. The destructive nature of these natural materials has made the task of heritage preservation a mammoth task.

Museum jewelry traces the progress of jewelry of the ancient man from central Africa and thereafter in the Middle East followed by the Indus Valley and Europe between 45,000 BC and 10,000 BC. The use of semi-precious stones and precious metals was evident from about 10,000 years ago. You can therefore see Egyptian antique earrings and brooches from 4500 BC using gold and silver as well as their alloys with copper.

The Pre-Columbians from 4000 BC used highly technical methods in their jewelry. Examples of such jewelry using Platinum are not uncommon. Chinese jewelry arrived on the scene around 5000 years ago. Large earrings of complex design have been discovered from around this period. These were in silver, bronze and gold. Similarly Sumerian hoop earrings in lapis and gilded sterling silver can be found from around 2500 BC.

Today you can buy exquisite museum jewelry from the years past. These are available online. They are created using similar materials as originally used. Care is taken to copy the original designs from ancient jewelry pieces. You can buy Viking jewelry from 800 AD and Russian, Victorian and French pieces from the 17^th century. You can select west

African crescent earrings in gilded sterling silver or classical Greek heart earrings in garnet, pearl and sterling silver from around 450 BC. A positive attempt is thereby made to preserve heritage in ancient jewelry.

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