Production
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Handcrafted African jewelry is very popular due to its beauty and originality. Such things like Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other types of handcrafted jewelry are always being made by the tribes. Back in the early times when they first started to make such items, they had to work with what they had to make such jewelry. Back then, items where not as easy to gather as now, before all they had was imagination and land made objects to create the beads and the strings to keep them together. Materials like Ivory, Carved Stone, bones, seashells, teeth, hair, eggshells, and wood was what they first gathered to create such unique and beautiful jewelry. Later on in time, they started doing trades, for Amber and Glass to use those items as well. When the glass beads came along it was seen as magical equipment, which is what made zulu bead jewelry fancy and a high rank to those who wore it. just like jewelry here in America, diamonds, Rubies, Pearls, and Sapphires are high priced in value than those just made of plastic or other particles, Glass is a high priced item in the bead making than the ones that are made of plastic and other items.
Production mostly takes place in both North and South Africa, and for many centuries, they have done trades to get the most valuable beads, which are the glass beads that were first brought by Phoenicians but then the trade for the glass beads was taken over by the Arabs in the 15th century. All the beadwork is done by hand and practiced the women of the Zulu tribe and from then on the tradition is passed on from mother to daughter or from older sister to sister. The men are just there to wear it but are no wear near the making of the jewelry.
The men and woman of the tribe mainly use the Zulu Beadwork but now it is worn by tourists and other people from different parts of the world in which the products are imported to. The Beadwork in general has existed for approximately 10,000 B.C. and it started in Libya. Even though beadwork has existed for that long, fact is, Africa was the first place where civilization first made and wore jewelry made out of Beads. This dates back to 75,000 years in which they started to use pea-sized snail shells as beads in the coast of South Africa. As time moved on the craftsmanship improved the making of the Jewelry and other artifacts, when they started to use plastic and glass beads, which resulted in the most precious jewelry in the world.
The men and woman of the tribe mainly use the Zulu Beadwork but now it is worn by tourists and other people from different parts of the world in which the products are imported to. The Beadwork in general has existed for approximately 10,000 B.C. and it started in Libya. Even though beadwork has existed for that long, fact is, Africa was the first place where civilization first made and wore jewelry made out of Beads. This dates back to 75,000 years in which they started to use pea-sized snail shells as beads in the coast of South Africa. As time moved on the craftsmanship improved the making of the Jewelry and other artifacts, when they started to use plastic and glass beads, which resulted in the most precious jewelry in the world.