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Historical information about handmade products
The Bedouin culture has a long history of beautiful costumes, textiles and jewelry. The Bedouin costume has not changed in a thousand years, and the Bedouins today dress in every particular as they did in the tenth century.
Blown glass, a very ancient technique, is the oldest among the handicrafts. It is said by some, that ancient Egyptians were the original inventors of glass making techniques. Production of metallurgy and faience helped a great deal in the manufacture of glass afterwards. The earliest Egyptian glass known to us was in the form of small beads and pendants found in sites dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C. At that time glass was made by melting a combination of silica-sand, lime, and soda. The interaction of the heated soda and the hot sand formed a transparent flowing liquid, which was then permitted to cool forming glass.
Papyrus was the first known paper in history. It is an ancient Egyptian invention, and considered the most important writing material in the ancient world. Our word -Paper- derives directly from the ancient Egyptian word -papyrus-.
Silver is a metallic chemical element, known from the earliest times. According to legends, Gold was considered to be the skin of the ancient Egyptian gods, but their bones were thought to be of silver. Ancient Egyptians were able to obtain gold and even electrum, but it is believed that silver was not known to them for a long time. Electrum is a gold-silver alloy which occurred naturally. It had silver contents somewhat higher than twenty percent and its color was pale amber. It was worked and used similarly to gold.
As Egypt is the cradle of civilization, no doubt that it is also the cradle of the arts and the home of craftsmanship. Personal ornaments appear to have been among the very first objects on which the invention and ingenuity of man were exercised. In the beginning, natural objects, such as small shells, dried berries, small perforated stones, feathers of variegated colors, were combined by stringing or tying together to ornament the head, neck, arms and legs, the fingers, and even the toes.
Mother of pearl: The shining and playful reflected light of mother of pearl has attracted the attention of human beings since the beginning of the world. Mother of pearl is the shell of mollusks (such as mussels and oysters) as well as of pseudo pods (such as snails). These shells take their colors and forms according to the type of animal and to the environment in which it lives.
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