7000 Years of Jewelry Paperback – September 12, 2008

I love this book. I am into jewelry, for the art, design, and cultural history of it. So, this is a treat. I just browse through it and read about all the jewelry made over thousands of years. To me, this is the original sophisticated art. I know there were cave paintings etc, but those were pretty primitive. If you compare it to jewelry that has been made for thousands of years, I'm just in awe of the culture, design, skill, and beauty of all of it. Love having this around to read when I want to.

I just got this book and it is so gorgeous! The photos make me positively drool. A great reference book for those who have an interest in historical jewelry style origins, meaning, and materials. It's chock full of photos, both color and black and white. I'm a jewelry artist so I also have a tip for other beaders here: techniques are mentioned but not illustrated, so if you are looking for instructions to recreate these styles this book is not for you. Buy this book for the inspiration and get the tools and techniques from the how-to books. Enjoy :)

Beautiful book, with tons of eye candy and great inspiration for jewelers. Very good explanations and background on the pieces.One very interesting feature of this book is that there are several images of the portraits of the original owners wearing the jewelry pieces which reference current photographs of the actual piece as it is today.Big book, with lots of beautiful pictures and interesting text. Good description of the materials used to create the jewelry.Recommended.

Purchased this book as a Christmas gift for someone taking classes on jewelry design and making jewelry. It was the best gift and has so many pictures and inspiring design elements.

As a newbie in jewlry appreciation world, this is a handy historical reference for shiny self-adornment

This is a great book on jewellry through the ages and already I been inspired to try some designs, based on the ancient pieces presented here. One can only look in awe at the "acquisitions" made by the 19th century explorers and hope one day common sense will prevail so that some works can make their way back to where they should be. In the interim I think we should be happy that such wonderful items are in one place where they can be viewed at leisure.

I also borrowed this book from the library a lot. It has a lot of great pictures of jewelry from the past. With the techniques I learned from "Creating your own Antique Jewelry", I'm able to make a lot of the jewelry from this book. I've also found that a lot of people like the old antique jewelry. Great for sales.

Pictures are nice. But the descriptions are very dry and inconsistent.