The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

4. Seals And Finger Rings

Not many years ago it was the fashion for man to wear a seal dangling from his watch fob. The jeweled trinket merely formed a pendant at the end of his watch chain, and its owner never even thought of it as anything except an ornament. Yet seals, whose ancestry dates back to the dawn of civilization, were once among the most useful and universally used articles turned out by the engraver. The word ‘seal’ be it remembered, is used in two ways: meaning either the bit of clay or wax on which a device is impressed, or the implement used to produce the impression.

In early times, when, with the advance of civilization, wandering tribes settled into communities, their increased personal possessions and interchange of documents called for some kind of identification mark that could be placed on such property or records. The obvious thing for the purpose was a seal. Accordingly the making of seals was given to the craftsmen skilled in engraving stones or metals. Each seal must bear some device or inscription that was recognizable as indicating personal ownership of property or the certification of a document. But this was not all a seal was supposed to do. Any property or document stamped with the owner’s seal was bound to him and he to it by a link of magic.

Signet stones were cut in various shapes, such as cylinders, cones, button forms, etc. The flat base of the little scarab, incised with some emblem, became in time one of the most popular of all signets.

Now, in order to produce any inscription in relief on wax or clay the inscription on the signet must be incised—that is, hollowed out instead of raised above the surface. This manner of cutting is called intaglio. Many of us possess modern intaglio-cut jewels but perhaps we have thought of their incised design only as one of the ways of decorating stones, without ever tracing the custom back to its original use. Yet it would be interesting to make the exquisite little bas-reliefs which result from pressing our intaglio gems upon a bit of dampened pipe-clay. Sealing wax does not give as clear an impression.

It is not definitely known just when the scarab took on, or when it relinquished, the duty of acting as a signet. In early days customs and manners in respect to anything were not the fleeting fashions of a moment that they so often are at present. It usually took invasion, war, and conquest to kill an established fashion overnight and set up a new one by morning. Probably for a long time scarabs, pierced like beads and worn suspended by a woolen cord around neck or wrist, served as amulets before reaching the point of development where they took the first step toward their use as signets, and much later as signet stones in rings. Even then, the ‘ring’ was likely to be only a bit of yarn on which the scarab was strung.

The next step was the replacement of yarn by wire, which had the advantage of being more durable. Wire of that period was not drawn. It was made of beating out gold, silver, or bronze and cutting it into strips which were then elongated and shaped by further hammering. Like the cord, the wire was flexible, and the scarab was strung like a bead and fastened round the finger.

In the course of time the wire was metamorphosed into a band of metal, no longer flexible but fashioned into a stiff hoop, one side of which carried what is known as the bezel. The bezel is that part of a ring where a gem is set for where the metal itself is enlarged to bear an inscription.

At this point the finger ring might be said to have reached maturity. It could, and did, and still does, take on many differing styles of ornamental design, but in the main its general form was the same then as today.

Of course a ring at this early stage was not considered merely as a piece of jewelry to adorn a hand. Its owner was wont to demand of it powers both supernatural and entirely practical. Hence a scarab set in a ring possessed a particularly efficient combination of desirable uses.

The scarab itself might be made of metal or clay, but more often was carved in soapstone, serpentine, ‘fire-fretted’ lapis lazuli, or hematite—and opaque stone ranging in color from dark steely gray to iron black. Carnelian, jasper, or whatever gemstone its owner could afford would take the form of a scarab. The convex back of the beetle was realistically carved and often decorated with small hieroglyphics, and a gold rim usually encircled the stone.

On the flat base was engraved the owner’s name, the name of the reigning king and emblems of certain deities. But a most ingenious device the scarab became efficient in two ways. Lengthwise through its center ran a wire, each end of which was fastened to the shank of the ring-band thus forming a pivot. On this pivot the scarab could revolve and not only exercise its original magic function as an amulet, but by a twist of thumb and finger could be turned over and made to serve the practical purpose of a signet. Such rings were called swivel rings.

‘The impression of the signet ring of a monarch,’ says one historian, ‘gave the force of a royal decree to any instrument to which it was attached.’

The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt (continued)