Exhibition: Masterpieces of Ancient Jewelry: Exquisite Objects

When it came to dying, wealthy people living in the world's earliest civilizations saw no reason not to take their most precious possessions with them. They arranged to have their favorite silver and gold rings, necklaces, pins and pendants, many encrusted in precious gems, buried or entombed with their remains.

A small but dazzling exhibit, featuring priceless and breathtakingly beautiful objects recovered by archeologists from tomb excavations during the last century, opened Wednesday at the Field Museum. The temporary show, "Masterpieces of Ancient Jewelry: Exquisite Objects from the Cradle of Civilization," was organized by the National Jewelry Institute and will remain in Chicago through July 5.

It includes more than 150 pieces, many as shiny and crisply detailed as they were when new. They range in age from 1,000 to more than 7,000 years old, representing the cultures and customs of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant, Persia and the Islamic Middle East. The region in which these civilizations thrived is the birthplace of three religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The objects were fashioned in the very places and times when humans were developing the wheel, the written word, music, astronomy and medicine. To satisfy a developing taste for the beautiful and expensive adornments featured in the exhibit, early craftsmen invented and refined their own technologies.