WEARABLE HERITAGE

In traditional jewelry, silver was most commonly used, and in modern Egyptian jewelry gold is used most often. However, other metals also play a role in the production of wearable heritage. Some metals have been used for centuries, while others are relatively new. These ‘new’ metals were originally brought from Europe by, for example, military staff during the colonization of Africa. It was in this manner that aluminum was first introduced. Soldiers carried with them cooking

When Napoleon visited Egypt his scientists counted more than fifty bathhouses in Cairo. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in some instances, over seventy public baths were counted. The public bathhouse, called hammam in Arabic, was once an integral part of society and played a vital role in the lives of Egyptian citizens. In a world where indoor plumbing was uncommon, the opportunity to visit these places, to purify oneself in hot baths, to get scrubbed and cleaned

This summer we visited the city of Perugia (Italy) and the fantastic exhibit Enduring Beliefs in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale dell'Umbria. When visiting the museum we stumbled onto the amulet collection of Giuseppe Bellucci (1844-1921) who was, among other things, the director of this museum for some time. Bellucci researched popular beliefs of rural Italian communities and religious practices in South and Central Italy. The information and the objects he collected over t

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford is a real treat for anyone interested in all sorts of wearable stuff. The museum was founded in 1884 after general Pitt Rivers donated his collection of objects to the University of Oxford. While there were 26.000 objects in the nineteenth century, over half a million objects are preserved there now. The museum is especially famous for its amulet collections, some 6.000 amulets are kept there. Some of which have been made available for researc