Dress & Accessories

Looking good has always been important

The simplest piece of jewellery is the pin. All you need is a piece of bone. People have worn pins for thousands of years. This one is about four thousand years old. Before buttons and zips pins were important clothes fasteners. They were easy to make, and easy to replace when broken.

Some jewellery is more unusual. This bead is made of faience. This is a type of glass, coloured with copper. This gives it a distinctive turquoise colour. Faience beads are rare. They were probably only owned by richer people. Just like today, some jewellery is expensive.

Even the simple pin can be made into something grander. These pins are made of gold, set with garnets. A rich Anglo-Saxon lady owned them. Fine jewellery looks good. It also tells everyone how important you are. Today a rich lady wears diamonds and pearls.

Sometimes archaeologists find really unusual pieces of jewellery. This is made from a beaver's tooth wrapped in gold. It was probably worn around the neck. Amazingly another almost the same was found close by. These were really special items. Only the very rich could afford them.

These simple pins are made of metal. Simple decoration adds a bit of style. They are only a few hundred years old. By then metal was common and easy to get. It was used for everyday items like this. Many were made by machine in factories. Today we use plastic in the same way.

This was used to curl the hair of a wig. In the 18th century both men and woman wore wigs. They were the height of fashion. Many had curled hair. Lots of wig curlers were needed for all those wigs. Hairdressers today still use curlers to curl hair. We still like our hair to look right.

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