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.
You need to be a member of Adorned Histories to add comments!
Request your copy of our newsletter.
If you would like to receive our newsletter
Comments
very nice to see a whole necklace with the Soul locks! I just bought one, a simple small one, because I fell in love with these locks. Nice to see how it can be worn!
Very nice to hear that, Eva. The one above is really quite exceptional - about the most elaborate version one will find. But the principle remains always the same. Even if you put a soul lock on a piece of string and tied that round your neck it should in theory have the same function, for with the piece of string it forms a "locked" circle within which the soul is protected.
Quite splendid. Thanks for showing Joost.
@Thanks Joost for the Explanation. The one I bought (not yet received) is a small, simple one, not comparable to this Piece on the photo. I lived approx 14 months in Thailand when I was young and travelled a lot around in Thailand during that time, many times to the North (ChiengRai Region), I even had baby clothes from the hilltribes for my daughers then......... but this is all Long ago. At that time I did not know about these locks, nor did I collect ethnic jewellery. But I had small baby silver bracelets to match the black suits (These suits had coloured embroidey), The tiny bracelets I still have.
if both locks were not bearing similar designs, one would have thought that the second lock was later added to make for a nice sale as it is regularly done in the ethnic jewelry market, for it is indeed, JOOST, your piece is so much powerful and phenomenal and seldom seem in such sheer size and profusion
Great collected item
There are others which "from the ground up" were made in this rather grand and "super safe" manner (with two locks for "security"), but although encountered here and there, they are a minority - not truly rare, but not often found either. In most case there is just one lock. We were just lucky to be able to buy examples of both types. I suppose it helps that we live in Australia, and visit Southeast Asia often, in one way or another, so the jewellery from the region feels quite familiar to us, while much less of it is seen in e.g. Europe. There are ardent collectors of Southeast Asian jewellery in Australia, and one world famous expert, Anne Richter, who has at least to very highly regarded and scholarly books to her name - the most recent one on Indonesian gold, with Bruce Carpenter (himself a well known US expert, living in Bali).
There is nothing wrong, Eva, about having a smaller version: the design of small ones is usually very good, and the interesting concept of the soul lock is what makes these pieces extraordinary. In a way the one above is just an elaboration on the basis shape of (usually) one neckring, with two chains coming down from that, and each of them attached to the top lop (left and right) of the actual "lock" (with its elegant design). The combination of beauty and magical power was of course found just right by the original owners!
Spectacular Joost! Also the little dangles that complete this necklace make it very nice indeed!