Understanding the Importance of Jewelry in Ancient Greece

For a long time, Greek jewelry designers have been coming up with ornaments that are beautiful in a mystifying way and tell their own stories. While the trend remained submerged for a while, it has emerged again with fierce popularity, and the credit goes to Modern Greek jewelry designers who are unfailingly designing stunning Greek jewelry, that takes you back to the ancient Greek culture and features a touch of contemporary style as well.

Crafted from precious metals and designed with natural and Greek themes, ancient Greek jewelry has clearly made its way into modern culture and has become a symbol of taste, wealth, and sophistication.

In this blog, we will take a look at the world of ancient Greek jewelry to explore its true meaning and significance throughout history.

Ancient Greek Jewelry

Since people of ancient Greek were heavily inspired by other cultures and nations, such as Romans, Egyptians, and Assyrians, their influence was clearly reflected in their sense of fashion, including jewelry designing.

So, when you look at ancient jewelry, you can think of it as something valuable that is the result of different cultures. The influence of Roman in Greek culture is evident due to the use of precious stones, such as topaz, amethyst, and aquamarine.

Ancient Greeks are known to use jewelry to represent the high rank of their gods, goddesses, and crucial events in ancient Greek history. It is easy to witness a variety of picturesque pendants, intricate filigree techniques, and granule work in Greek jewelry.

To understand ancient Greek jewelry better and the concepts behind it, learning about the importance of jewelry in ancient Greece can be very insightful.

Importance of Jewelry in Ancient Greek Culture

The first thing we can be certain of is that Ancient Greeks right from Zeus to Helios worshipped sky deities. Thus, it makes sense that they would incorporate and showcase their importance in jewelry as well. Selene, the goddess of the moon, was honored through creatively designed crescent earrings that featured sophisticated granule work.

Undeniably, Greeks used to show their respect for their gods and goddesses through precious jewelry. However, for Greeks, jewelry was also a symbol that represents immense wealth, status, and taste. At that time, metals were too expensive, and hence, jewelry made from them was also exorbitantly costly and hard to attain for lower and middle class people. Thus, at that time, it was typically limited to the wealthy class only.

Interestingly, most ideas and themes for Ancient Greek jewelry in the current world come from funerary graves. It’s because ancient Greeks believed that jewelry is so important that the deceased ones will keep it with them in the afterlife as well. This fact alone is sufficient to understand how crucial and valuable jewelry was to ancient Greeks.

The most intriguing thing about Ancient Greek Jewelry which makes it even more unique, valuable, and soothing to eyes is that it is all about the depiction of nature, like olive leaves, laurel wreaths, animals, insects, gods, goddesses, and other signs that represent great events or mystifying forces.