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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Very interesting to see - thank you for sharing! Are they all silver alloys but with different mixes? I have a set which look and feel like pewter...not sure though!
Dear Betty; Very interesting - I like it very much. Peter
Betty, a lovely and impressive arrangement of all these Muria beads collection.
The two bottom ones are full Muria necklaces, made up of the traditional 13 pcs.
The second from top the four and the ending silver beads are beautiful, lovely rare pcs. with the special designs and so worn, because of its high silver quality. Lovely warm shine to them as well.
The top one looks of silver, but I do think made up of different necklaces?
Gr. Ingrid.
Thank you Charlotte and Peter.
They are all made of different alloys. The largest (outermost) is actually made of aluminium, I believe. The beads are cast and not completely hollow. The second one is made of a metal alloy and looks like it was silver-plated. When polished, it shines quite nicely, almost like silver. The one with the yellow plastic beads is very good, rather thin silver sheet (at least 800/1000). The innermost, finally is my latest acquisition. It's made of a good silver alloy, I would guess 700/1000, but haven't tested it yet.
a splendid Display of Murias! Really lovely, thanks for the detailed Information below. Nice to see the different materials. I still haven't got one........ (had to sacrifice ethnic jewellery for photographic Equipment which is so exensive). But soon, I will get some new hairpins.. I always dreamed of having a classical Muria too, well, some day perhaps (or one of Ingrid's Jimma beads, when I have enough Money).
These are all so gorgeous! Betty my guess is that the second from the bottom is made of a white brass alloy with some silver content.
It is quite lovely as-is. But, if you want to see whether it will whiten, you could put a bit of ketchup in a discrete location for 30 minutes and then remove. Sometimes these alloys will get very white with acid treatment.
Thank you Eva and Lynn.
You are right, Lynn, the second one from the bottom is some base metal (possibly white brass). And yes, after cleaning it gets a lot more silvery in colour. Thanks for the useful idea with the ketchup.
Thanks for you comment Ingrid! I've only seen it now. Yes, the 2nd from top is my fvourite, even though some silver beads have been replaced by yellow beads. The top one seems to be made from one necklace except for the centre bead slightly larger than the others and has a different design. Still, a nice combination I like to wear very much.
Do you perhaps know when they started making the aluminium Murias?
Betty, here is my theory and experience. items made before 1937 were made of silver, because there were all the thalers, than the Italian occupation for 5 years came in and people had to hand in the silver coins, to be replaced with the Italian nickel lire, because they needed the silver for their war affairs. So the thalers went underground. So the jewelers had to make do with little silver and so te mix of lots of nickel, a bit of copper and very little silver had to do with the making of jewellery. Than after the 5 years were over and the recovering again good silver thalers came out of hiding and at a later date the government(the Emperor's government) brought in raw silver for the jewellers and they could buy their need from the government, and so also Thalers were safed unless the farmer wanted to sell them.
Than the revolution came 1974, so in the upheavel and the war situation no money was spend on raw silver and this is also the time 1975- 2000 at least when loads of good silver pieces were lost because the people sold them (in need of funds) to the jewellers to be melted down for re-use of modern jewellery. Harrar at that time also lost its reputation of good silver because once again pieces of a low silver content were once again produced. In my time I haven't seen any aluminium Muria;s 1998, but I do know that the Boranna people had a fashion of aluminium beads in the 1975s. So perhaps that is where they got the idea from so I would say 1980.
Especially for the tourisme, because by now brides were starting to get away from the traditional jewellery and wanted the modern pieces in silver or gold. This definitely for the town's people and the surrounding villages. And jewellers are mostly to be found in town and not in remote villages.
So that means: 1st period 1938 - 1945 and the second period from 1975 -1992, end of the revolution . In the meantime traditional Murias etc. had gone out of fashion.
Al the time 800/1000 silver and gold pieces of jewellery were produced in the town in modern styles ( which required a lot less material compared to the traditional pieces.
Betty what I do notice now from following up happenings of Ethiopia, that the young women of Ethiopia and Eritrea and abroad are very much into bringing back the tradtional clothing in the very original and also highly fashionable styles and trying to get back the ethnic jewellery(mostly the golden jewellery) and wearing it also overdone.
You known old fashion jewellery were always in silver, like the telsums and fertility pieces, bracelets etc. only some inventive rich ladies had some made in gold.
Gr. Ingrid.
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