Description:
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Ring Size 6 1/2
Weighs 7.6 Grams
Stones measure approximately 5.7mm by 7.98mm
We are pleased to offer this Sterling Silver Native American Turquoise and Coral Stone Design Ring. This beautiful Native American design ring contains one turquoise stone and one coral stone and is in an eight shape sterling silver setting with silver braiding surrounding the stones. This ring is in very good condition with only minor nicks from normal use including one in the sterling silver on the side of the setting holding the turquoise stone.
Sterling silver is a white and highly reflective precious metal. Sterling refers to silver that is 92.5 percent pure, which should be stamped on the metal, sometimes accompanied by the initials of the designer or country of origin as a hallmark. Although less durable than stainless steel and other precious metals, sterling silver is often employed in watches that coordinate or look like sterling jewelry.
Jewelry styles were different in every American Indian tribe, but the differences were less marked than with other arts and crafts, because jewelry and the materials used for making it (beads, shells, copper and silver, ivory, amber, turquoise and other stones) were major trade items long before European arrival in America. After colonization, Native American jewelry-making traditions remained strong, incorporating, rather than being replaced by, new materials and techniques such as glass beads and more advanced metalworking techniques. There are two very general categories of Native American jewelry: metalwork, and beadwork. Before Europeans came native metalwork was fairly simple, consisting primarily of hammering and etching copper into pendants or earrings and fashioning copper and silver into beads. After Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo artists learned silversmithing from the Spanish in the 1800's, metal jewelry arts blossomed in the Southwest.
Turquoise, according to many South Western Native American tribes, has important talismanic properties. In Europe it was regarded as amulet to protect horse-riders from falling. It’s also the December birthstone.
Turquoise, the "fallen skystone", "gem of the centuries", is indigenous to the Americas, Egypt, ancient Persia (Iran), Tibet and China. Throughout human history, the stone has been revered and admired for its beauty and reputed spiritual life-enhancing qualities. The oldest known piece of jewelry, a turquoise bracelet, was found on the wrist of a 7000 year-old mummified Egyptian queen (bless her heart).
The oldest mine of any kind on the North American continent, the Cerrillos turquoise mine just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, dates back at least 2000 years. Native American Pueblo peoples dug deep into the stony ground using antlers and stone mauls to bring up the precious turquoise, a true labor of love. To the Pueblos and the Navajos, turquoise is sacred, takes its color from the sky, and symbolizes the supreme, life-giving and healing power of the Creator.
Originally, indigenous peoples of the Southwest carved turquoise into beads or animal fetishes or overlaid it onto wood, bone, or shell using such fixatives as beeswax or piñon pine pitch. The Spanish introduced silver mining, smelting, and smithing technology into the Southwest in the sixteenth century. Combining that new knowledge of silver with the turquoise stone, the Native Americans created an industry of beauty.
Silver and turquoise jewelry is increasingly renowned around the world. Turquoise is New Mexico's gemstone and is recognized as the birthstone of December. It has been known by this name since the French purchased the "turkey stone" from Turkish traders, never realizing that the turquoise was mined in Persia and later traded to the Turks. Today, celebrities adorned with this valued stone are omnipresent in fashion magazines and on television. Interest in this beautiful and varied stone has reached a new high, similar to the craze of the sixties and early seventies.
Corals are a decorative material with a very special fascination - the perfect embodiment of Man's longing for summer, sun and far-off oceans.
As to the origin of the name, the etymologists are not, however, of one opinion. Some say that it comes from the Greek 'korallion', which denotes the hard, calcareous skeleton of the coral animals, or from 'kura-halos', for 'mermaid', as the fine branches of the coral sometimes look like small figures. Others think it more likely that the word is derived from the Hebrew 'goral', (a small stone used in the drawing of lots), for coral branches used to be used in oracles in Palestine, Asia Minor and around the Mediterranean.
Corals live at depths of between three and 300 meters in the waters around Japan, Taiwan and in the Malaysian Archipelago, in the Red Sea, in the Bay of Biscay and around the Canary Islands, as well as in north-east Australia and the Midway Islands. In the Mediterranean, there are coral banks in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Sardinia, off Tunisia and Algeria, former Yugoslavia and Turkey.
When we hear the word coral we first think of the coral reefs in the Southern Ocean or off Australia, of the reefs, banks and atolls which are among the most beautiful miracles of Nature. However, it is not these protected coral species of which we are talking here. In jewelry, it is corals such as 'corallium rubrum' and 'corallium japonicum' that are used.
Like the pearls, these are also organic jewelry materials. It certainly is an interesting fact that both of these are products of the water, chemically closely related with each other. Both consist of more than 90 per cent calcium carbonate. And it really is a miraculous thing that Nature has created both the scarlet coral and the pearl from the same, unprepossessing raw material.
Remember Goodoletom for fabulous, top quality collectibles and vintage fine and costume jewelry! So, if you "love it!!” be sure to check back with us soon for ever changing inventory on a regular basis.
Goodoletom purchased this item from a Hartford area estate. It is unique in our inventory, so Buy It Now and don't be disappointed! (111407AJ04HC)
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