Photos

Comments

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  Charlotte Dakin-Norris December 3, 2014 at 6:35pm

  Sadly, I do not have the original cord so I have made a replica, using nearly 200 fine antique cotton threads hand woven together.
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  ingrid Langerak December 3, 2014 at 7:07pm

  Charlotte, a beautiful pendant of top quality work.  Love the cresents as bells, I haven.t seen those earlier.  Love how the bails on the thalers have been made. A perfect job with the cord so similar to the better original ones even nicer. Like I told you before, you definitely have the eye!

  Gr. Ingird.
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  Charlotte Dakin-Norris December 3, 2014 at 7:58pm

  Ingrid - thank you, you're making me blush! It took a while and some experimentation to work out how to make the cord, but I'm quite pleased with the result. The knot isn't too uncomfortable to wear, and having it means I can clean it easily.
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  Lynn Ardent December 4, 2014 at 2:20am

  Stunning necklace, the work is really fine.  What kind of braid did you use on the cord?  You did a great job!
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  Peter Hoesli December 4, 2014 at 5:00am

  Dear Charlotte; Well done indeed! Having myself a quite large Omani collection, I know how special the cords are. In Oman, you had the silver smiths and the cords were not done by them but by specialists who only did cords and similar. This profession is unfortunately dying out. Regards. Peter
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  Charlotte Dakin-Norris December 4, 2014 at 8:59am

  Thank you for the info Peter - I did wonder as all of the examples that I looked at when researching making the cord are beautifully braided, and appear hand done rather than machine made cord. Thank you Lynn - ordinary sewing thread is a bit too thick, but I have a selection of antique threads used for lacemaking so I had a finer one. I ran a thread 48 times round 2 chairs to get a good length, and tied it together, and repeated another 3 times to make 4 lengths. I then braided them together for the loop, and then joined both ends to make 4 x 96 threads which I then braided into a 4 strand round braid. I had to make up the knot as using multiple strands of thread make it fiddly. Took a while! I did try to find an original online...but no luck!

  What a shame that the art is dying out in Oman. There will be subtle differences in weaving compared to other countries. It needs someone to document this before it dies out completely.
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  Ishvara Dhyan December 4, 2014 at 11:43am

  How would one tell the difference between Omani and Yemeni Silver work ?
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  Charlotte Dakin-Norris December 4, 2014 at 2:11pm

  I'm no expert on this! Originally I thought that it was a Rashaida prayer box, but I saw a similar one on ebay listed as from Oman...and then a VERY similar one when I did some browsing under that name. I wonder if Peter can offer some advice?
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  Charlotte Dakin-Norris December 4, 2014 at 2:40pm

  This is a link to the very similar one I found:

  http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_...
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  Peter Hoesli December 4, 2014 at 4:42pm

  Dear Charlotte; This is definitely from Oman - no doubt at all! The Yemeni jewelry is very fine with a lot of filigree - a picture perfect and rather intricate. Also, the Yemeni necklaces are kept together either by silver cords or by thinner thread. The more south you go in Yemen, hence, to the Hadramaut (which was a separate from Oman and Yemen before) bordering Oman, the silver jewelry becomes bolder. The Omani jewelry is large, heavy and made of high silver (the old Yemeni jewelry is as well made of mostly high silver while the newer jewelry is of mixed metal, hence, with little content of silver). I will post a few of my Omani jewelry for you to see and enjoy! With kind regards. Peter