Our Jewelry Our Identity
Traditional Saudi Designed Jewelry.
What you wear sends a message… The wide range of design styles across the Arabian Peninsula along with the richness of Saudi heritage has enabled us to demonstrate the changes and continuities in jewelry composition. The intercultural influences on design vernaculars, as well as the resilience of traditional design repertoires tells the story of a nation. The dazzling range of styles and techniques in Saudi jewelry points to its rich cultural past.
After the foundation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 90 years ago, the artefacts of our material culture do not just tell us about the transformation of the language of design across space and time, but also capture the impact of geopolitical contexts, changes in trade and technology, as well as the construction of communal identities and social habits.
Some objects, such as jeweled headpieces, have rarely been visible to outsiders in the past, and can tell us about the aesthetics of private spaces and how for instance, flowers were kept around the headpieces for their fragrances. Other items, such as the embellished textiles worn by nomadic Bedouins, help us understand how the physical demands of daily life in the desert shaped sartorial choices.
Differently fashioned earrings, rings and bangles reveal the cultural agency of urban and rural women as they made decorative choices. Elaborate necklaces illustrate the skilled and creative authorship of local craftsmen who while preserving traditional design elements and techniques, incorporated new aesthetics from a diverse range of external influences from trade and exposure.
Traditional Saudi Jewelry exhibition.
Traditional Saudi Jewelry exhibition.
Traditional Saudi Jewelry exhibition.
Traditional Saudi Jewelry exhibition.
The pieces worn reflect influences from all over — from coiled, Celtic-style bangles to abstract African designs, Egyptian snake-design bracelets, and shimmering cascades of Indian and Austrian coins. Their story is story of the pearl divers, the pilgrims that came to Makkah and stayed on and created different crafts, the influences from the trade routes that passed through, and then the newer styles and creations by designers in the Kingdom.
The richness of our culture allows us to think of design as a language that travelled along the same routes as incense and spices, science, and religious pilgrims. Design languages are exchanged, developed, and put into conversation with ancient repertoires of material culture Therefore, when we look deeply at our designs, they capture elements from within the Arabian Peninsula and across the Red Sea and over land routes extending to Persia, Afghanistan, Turkey, ancient Rome and Greece, Egypt and South Asia.
The lands known today as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were a crossroads of civilizations and traditions which provided a fertile incubator for a sophisticated design legacy.
After the unification of the Kingdom by King Abdulaziz our jewelry slowly became significantly different from those largely worn by tribal Bedouin communities.
A more unified style emerged, and the “modern” examples are an innovation, both in their design and function as well as including new and more universal materials used in their creation.
Written by Special Contributor Somaya Badr, CEO of Art of Heritage and Art of Heritage Cultural Trust.
