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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Beautiful Ingrid! Love them all! Some look like faces..
Yes Eva, two look a bit like the mysterious hairpin, remmber?
yes, yes, I remember it!
Hi Ingrid,
Lovely items! I have not read much about telsums, but I understand that the triangular ones confer protection against the evil eye. The big eyes in the "faces" on the four items at top center of the photo are indeed likely to be designed to repel the evil eye. The semi-circular pendants are reported to protect against the negative influence of the crescent moon... I'm not familiar with this explanation, and will have to investigate.
The latticework and dotted designs on the other pendants are mainly decorative, although any pattern containing repeated lozenge (diamond) shapes -- as many of yours do -- could hark back to prehistoric times, where it was a fertility symbol.
Multiple spirals are also ancient fertility symbols. "There is no doubt that the double spiral is a very old magic symbol. […] In prehistoric times, the simple spiral must have been regarded as possessing magic virtues, owing to its appearance as a line without an end; and so by association of ideas, since like produces like, it must have been hoped that the line without end would confer life without end. […] In the course of time, attempts would be made to improve the simple spiral. The most natural way would be to double the spiral." [A.J. Arkell (1937) ‘The double spiral amulet,’ Sudan Notes & Records 20, 151-155.] In two instances in your photo, the concept has been extended towards triple-spiral constructions. The best known instance of a triple spiral is the famous Neolithic carving in the passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland( http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/artgallery/newgrange-art-9.jpg ).
Hope some of this is of interest, and thanks once again for posting the photos!
Thank you Lloyd for your explanations. It make sense about the fertility signs, because telsums are given during the engagement ceremony from the groome to the bride for protection. And of course, like in a country like Ethiopia were child death was very high, birth was very important special as they were also farmers. I also have a small collection which are decorated with fish. That would stand perhaps for plenty (not running out of food?) I will make , photo of them hoping not to take too much of your time. You know Lloyd, as the spiral refers to fertility, could it also have connections with the woman's part? Which refers to giving birth? Just a thought.
I love the info you share with us. and I am looking more intensive at the items collected. You know most of the symbols used especially dealing with fertility are almost not talked about in Ethiopia, the women are very shy about that. Like the Harrar basket with their male and female shapes.
Also it is taboe to refer to magic, eventhough it is very much used in daily life in all kind of forms, they have given it earthy names, like the triangle shaped telsum is referred to as a horse's ear. Your information wakes me up to so many incidents, it was also very difficult to get any information, not wanting to talk about or completely forgotten and just accepted for what it is.
Greetings Ingrid
I'm glad you found the comments interesting and helpful, Ingrid. It is very useful to me to hear how these items are regarded and spoken about in their native culture.
To answer your specific question, the spiral does not refer directly to female reproduction, but the lozenge (diamond) and perhaps even the triangle may do. To quote Maria Gimbutas: "The lozenge and triangle with one or more dots are encountered on shrine walls, vases, seals, and typically on the pregnant belly or other parts of the Pregnant Goddess, starting in the 7th millennium B.C. In origin, both glyphs probably are schematized configurations of the vulva and the pubic triangle and relate to the life-source. The dots perhaps represent the seed inside the womb or field.” [Gimbutas (1987) “The earth fertility of old Europe,” In: Dialogues d'Histoire Ancienne 13, p.11-69, at p.14-15].