A digital archive showcasing the extensive collection of jewellery and adornment images shared on the former Ethnic Jewels Ning site over the years. These images have significantly enriched discussions on cultural adornment and its global dispersion.
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Hi Ayis,
Beautiful pieces to my eyes especialy as it is difficult now to get them with the coins. I have a few myself (without the coins though) and I am not sure where , in the Sahara they come from.......How can you say for yours that they are from the Algerian Sahara? (because you got them there or is it a stylistic assessment?).
About the wonderful photo of the Tunisian woman, is it a postcard or a picture from a book? (in that case what book?).
I remember exactely that i bought them in Marrakech a while ago in a tiny shop where the dealer had tens of kilograms of these beauties, he also had some wonderful other stuff from south west algeria (4-5 pairs of extremely rare algerian sahara worm holes fibulas, but the asked price by the gram made them too dear to my budget....thousands of euros!!!)
At that time i noticed that there was a great availability of algerian pieces, they were smuggled to morocco by the hundreds from algeria where they were not popular and no tourist or serious collector have set foot there to get them since the civil war.
Anyway, the coins used in these pendants were the legal mint available in the french posessions across africa and were widely available in algeria.
Similar pendants are kept in paris quai branly museum labelled as coming from the SAOURA valley in south west algeria (close to the moroccan border) wich explains why they were easily smuggled in along with the many other jewelry originating from this region.
They are supposedly a hair ornament of the Harratine oases dwellers (dark skinned natives) whose women would use one pendant at a time to hang on the temple as their local name make it clear "GUTTAYA" wich literally means "a side wick left loose or braided apart from the rest of the hair or left after shaving all the hair"
Closely related pendants are found among the same ethnical populations in south morocco and central mauritaniausing conus shell and coins braided/sewn on leather or wool.
As for the photo, it is a postcard
beautiful ones ayis. congratulation. i have one on hold by a collector in algeria. i could not pay it. i agree with him to pay partly. i hope i can get it. he said yes but i hope he has enough patience.
yes they are from saoura and elkssour