Pendants

A pendant is a kind of jew­elry which ori­gin­ally had two pur­poses: dec­or­at­ive and prac­tic­al. For dec­or­at­ive pur­poses, a pendant was de­signed to be worn around one's neck; the prac­tic­al use of a pendant con­sisted of fasten­ing cloths and oth­er ac­cessor­ies. The very first pendants were found in ex­cav­ated Pa­leo­lith­ic set­tle­ments. From their early, simple ver­sions to today's soph­ist­ic­ated designs, pendants are one of the kinds of jew­elry that has re­mained pop­u­lar throughout the ages.

In me­di­ev­al Europe, pendants were both male and fe­male ac­cessor­ies. Be­sides their aes­thet­ic ap­peal, pendants had a rather prac­tic­al pur­pose: they were of­ten used as fasten­ers, clasp­ing the laces and hold­ing to­geth­er the vari­ous ele­ments of cloth­ing. Nat­ur­ally, pendants were too costly for com­mon people, and the pendant's look, shape, and the ma­ter­i­als from which it was made could of­fer in­form­a­tion about its own­er's wealth and status. The wealth­i­er was the own­er, the more soph­ist­ic­ated, unique, and ex­pens­ive were the pendants used to dec­or­ate and fasten his clothes. In gen­er­al, pendants were of­ten em­bel­lished with gem­stones or covered with en­grav­ings or enamel or­na­ment­a­tion.

Nowadays, the most pop­u­lar type of pendant is the neck pendant. The tra­di­tion of us­ing pendants as fasten­ers was re­placed with more mod­ern and ef­fi­cient solu­tions, such as zip­pers, but­tons, Vel­cro, and oth­ers. The zip-lock­ers of vari­ous shapes, col­ors, and ma­ter­i­als, of­ten bear­ing a name or a logo of the com­pany that made it, can be per­ceived as a vestige of wear­ing cloth pendants. In gen­er­al, the im­port­ance of cloth pendants has greatly de­creased over the last couple of cen­tur­ies, while neck pendants re­main as pop­u­lar as ever.

Pendants with Jewels

A pendant dec­or­ated with one or more gem­stones is the most clas­sic­al vari­ation of this jew­elry type. Cer­tainly, the de­vel­op­ment of jew­elry mak­ing has strongly in­flu­enced changes in the ap­pear­ance of pendants, mak­ing them more in­tric­ate, soph­ist­ic­ated, and light­weight than those from the 12th-13th cen­tur­ies. Mod­ern jew­el­ers are able to cre­ate real mas­ter­pieces, com­bin­ing up-to-date en­grav­ing tech­niques and dec­or­at­ing their products with ideally shaped dia­monds and oth­er gem­stones.

Pendants with Initials

These days, pendants in the shape of one’s ini­tials, name, or zo­di­ac­al sign are ex­tremely pop­u­lar. Like com­mon pendants, these of­ten are dec­or­ated with gems; skilled jew­elry makers some­times show their mas­tery by en­grav­ing in­tric­ate or­na­ments on the pendant's sur­face. Paired pendants are usu­ally pro­duced on de­mand, of­ten dec­or­ated with en­graved ini­tials of the two in love.

Lockets

Lock­ets (or medal­lions) are pendants in the shape of a small box with a lock­er. Lock­ets are usu­ally oval or round, or some­times in the shape of a heart. However, more un­usu­al and cre­at­ive designs are also avail­able. A photo or a por­trait (or some­times two por­traits) can be placed in­side the lock­et, as well as small yet cher­ished ob­jects, such as a lock of hair or oth­er es­pe­cially mem­or­able or mean­ing­ful art­icles. As a rule, only the front side of a lock­et should be dec­or­ated with gem­stones or en­grav­ings, while the back should re­main flat, some­times with some me­mori­al etch­ing.

The word "medal­lion" it­self comes from Rome; at that time, it meant a spe­cial golden pendant, a medal, giv­en to a vic­tori­ous war­lord. Medal­lions and lock­ets in their mod­ern con­nota­tion ap­peared in Europe in the Middle Ages and usu­ally were used for hold­ing por­traits or locks of hair from a be­loved per­son.

Amulets

Am­u­lets are ob­jects which are pur­por­ted to im­prove cer­tain per­son­al traits and phys­ic­al abil­it­ies, such as mak­ing a per­son smarter, stronger, kinder, or more hand­some. Am­u­lets have been used since the an­cient times, ac­com­pa­ny­ing be­liefs in the ma­gic­al power of nature and the gods. Al­though the ma­jor­ity of the mod­ern people claim them­selves to be ma­ter­i­al­ists, many of them do wear am­u­lets, in­clud­ing ones bear­ing vari­ous re­li­gious sym­bols.

There are also pro­tect­ing am­u­lets, called talis­mans, which are be­lieved to pro­tect their own­ers from mis­for­tunes, de­feats, or sick­nesses. The word “am­u­let” it­self is of­ten as­so­ci­ated with a pendant made of large gem­stone set in gold or sil­ver mount­ing. However, ac­cord­ing to nu­mer­ous su­per­sti­tions, any ob­ject could be­come an am­u­let, as long as it is really im­port­ant to its own­er.

Symbols of Faith

Sym­bols of faith are am­u­lets worn for the pur­pose of shield­ing their own­er un­der the pro­tec­tion of the god in which he or she be­lieves. Today, there are many known sym­bols of faith, e.g. Muslim cres­cent and a star, Or­tho­dox and Cath­ol­ic crosses, Juda­ic Star of Dav­id, Buddhist Dhamachakra, and Hindu Om, as well as some oth­er more or less pop­u­lar signs.

Some of these sym­bols, like the cross which was used to bap­tize a per­son, should be worn un­der­neath the clothes; these are usu­ally small and un­pre­ten­tious. An­oth­er kind in­cludes the re­li­gious sym­bols or por­traits of saints with im­ages craf­ted by skilled and mas­ter­ful artists and lav­ishly dec­or­ated with gem­stones, vari­ous types of en­grav­ing, and or­na­ments. These items of­ten are made in the shape of neck pendants, but there also can be rings, fin­ger rings, brace­lets, and ear­rings dec­or­ated with crosses and oth­er re­li­gious sym­bols.

Military Dog Tags

Nowadays, wear­ing mil­it­ary dog tags is an ex­tremely pop­u­lar fash­ion trend. At first, such dog tags were giv­en to of­ficers only, but later they be­came a com­mon ac­cess­ory for all mil­it­ary people in­clud­ing privates. Every dog tag con­tains en­grav­ing with a sol­dier's per­son­al num­ber and his or her per­son­al cre­den­tials; every coun­try has its own stand­ards for the shape and size of dog tags, as well as for the data they should con­tain. Most coun­tries that use these tags have a mil­it­ary data­base that con­tains all the per­son­al num­bers of all the mil­it­ary per­son­nel, and the tags can be used for iden­ti­fic­a­tion pur­poses. The blood group is also of­ten writ­ten on a tag, which aids in the case of emer­gency res­cue.

Tags are usu­ally made of high-heat al­loys to help in the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of a per­son with severe burns or body mu­til­a­tions. Jew­elry which looks like mil­it­ary dog tags is of­ten worn for purely aes­thet­ic reas­ons, so of­ten it is made of pre­cious metals and al­loys. Mil­it­ary dog tag im­it­a­tions are nev­er dec­or­ated with en­grav­ing or gem­stones.