We have a vast collection of images here which have been shared over the years ...
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Comments
Another stunner. So elegant in its strict geometry. And all the super-fine filigree work!
Dear Peter, thank you for your appreciation. Gr. Ingrid.
Beautiful! As mentioned by Betty and Peter, me too, I admire the wonderful filigree work!
Thank you Eva Baby.
Here is the same koran box, acquired in EThiopia and I have a smaller one as well, also from Ethiopia. It is so unbelievable that in all the discussions Ethiopia is completely out of the picture, like on the cuffs of Zambesi, they are RashAida cuffs and most of the RashAida are moving in Eritrea and Ethiopia. And than to know that the RAshAida do have their own female silversmith traveling amongst them and doing the work. Gr. Ingrid.
You are of course absolutely right, Ingrid!
The only bit I still do not subscribe to without further evidence (we have discussed this before :)) is that Rashaida women do their own silversmithing. I believe they make their veils (adorned with tiny silver beads) and assemble their jewellery with much taste and style, but I really doubt if they make bracelets and koran boxes.
Other than that Ethiopia is a good example to show how cross cultural influences play out. There was/is lively trade, there are Yemeni smiths working in Harar, Ethiopian smiths creating pieces that look Yemeni to us, and there are a lot of elements used on either side of the Red Sea ... it is really complex because the national boxes we use today to classify items often just do not fit.
Betty, that is what I believed in as well, but than I read an article of a lady who had travelled amongst them I will try to find it and link it. You know the RashAida do keep themselves very much to them selves, away from the territorial Ethiopians, and they do not interfere with the RashAida people. I remember on one occasion to meet up with a oldRashAida Lady (who did not speak a word of Tigrigna or Amharic, the language of my ex-husband) and her grandson, and also he spoke some Tigrigna but on both sides they were very reticent to tell or ask anything. GR. Ingrid.
The place were we meat was aroind Assab a port on the Red Sea in Eritrea.
What a glorious pendant, I am surprised I missed it the first time round you showed it !