40 BEACHES OF EAST HAMPTON

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my wife not too long ago, wondering how it was possible that I have lived here on the East End of Long Island for over 30 years and have not yet visited all the beaches of East Hampton Town.  So we made a vow to walk all 40 beaches of this town and record our observations on this blog!    We thought it might be useful as there are no in depth beach guides for this area (either on the web or in print) and, in the summer at least, this town is a major destination for beach visitors.

This is a series of 7 blog posts and they are each on a separate page -> check out the top of  the side bar or you can click here 40 Beaches of East Hampton!   You can also click on whatever beach you are interested in on the list below…. Just in case you are wondering…these are gorgeous beaches.

Take care, David

I Sag Harbor and Northwest Beaches

1) Foster Memorial Beach (Long Beach)

2) Haven’s Beach, Bay Street

3) Barcelona Neck beach

4) Northwest Landing Rd beach

5) Mile Hill Rd beach

6) Cedar Point Park beaches

II Three Mile Harbor and Springs Beaches

7) Sammy’s Beach

8 ) Maidstone Park Beach

9) Lion Head Beach

10) Kings Point Rd Beach

11) Gerard Drive, Gerard Point

12) Louse Point Beach

III Amagansett, Napeague and Hither Hills Bay Beaches

13) Barnes Landing Beach

14) Albert’s Landing Beach

15) Abraham’s Landing Beach

16) Promised Land and Lazy Point Beaches

17) Napeague Harbor Beaches

18) Hither Hills Beaches

IV Montauk Bay Beaches

19) Navy Rd Beaches

20) Culloden Point

21) Gin Beach

22) Oyster Pond

23) North Rd beaches

V Montauk Ocean Beaches

24) Old Montauk highway – Camp Hero Beaches

25) Cliff Drive Rd

26) Rheinstein Estate Park

27) Montauk Beaches

28) Gurney’s Inn

29) Hither Hills Campgrounds Beach

VI Napeague, Amagansett Ocean Beaches

30) Napeague stretch beaches

31) Beach Hampton

32) Atlantic Beach

33) Indian Wells beach

VII East Hampton and Wainscott Ocean Beaches

34) Two Mile Hollow Beach

35) Wiborg Beach

36) Main Beach East

37) Main Beach West

38) Georgica Beach

39) Wainscott Beach

40) Sagg Main Town Beach

BEACH GLASS & SEA GLASS

“Do you have beach glass jewelry?”  That is a question I often get when I am exhibiting at an Arts & Crafts Fair.

So, yes, I do work with beach or sea glass, terms which are often used interchangeably (see the images in this post).  As any beachcomber knows, a nice piece of glass is a good find.  An uncommon color, a well worn piece (which is old), a recognizable lettering or name that can help date the piece, these are features we all look for.

Green Sea Glass pendent in Silver

I have learned that beach glass is very popular.  A search on the etsy.com website for “beach glass” got 12,484 hits and a search for “sea glass” got 22,050 hits.  Those are items for sale, either handmade jewelry, vintage pieces or supplies (such as bundles or bulk lots of beach glass).   Even with so many buyers and sellers, there is surprisingly little knowledge on this product.  So I tried to educate myself and researched the web on beach glass and found some interesting stuff.

Sea Glass Pendent in Silver

The Wikipedia page on “Sea Glass” is informative.  It is particularly strong on the colors that are sought after and links each color to the possible source: for example red sea glass from old Schlitz beer bottles (1900-1982).  Schlitz was a brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which became Stroh Brewery and is now Pabst Brewing Company.  As with red glass of Schlitz bottles, there are many examples where the particular color helps to date the glass.

Much of this information comes from a book written by LaMotte, who is referred to as the “Godfather of  Sea Glass”.   LaMotte together with Charles Peden founded the North American Sea Glass Association (NASGA).  Their website has news about the Sea Glass Festival in October.  A very useful page compares natural (genuine) sea glass, versus “craft glass” (or artificial glass) tumbled in drums rather than by the action of waves over many years.   You can also find information on antique bottle collecting and a link to Antique Bottle Collector’s Haven!  On this site you can appraise your antique bottle and date it.

Blue Sea Glass pendent

An interesting article describes the amethyst color brought out by sunlight over the years.  It is due to manganese dioxide that was added to glass prior to the 1920s to produce colorless glass by counteracting the natural green hue from iron.  Manganese when exposed to UV light over the years turns to an amethyst color.

Green Sea Glass Pendent in Silver

A frequent query is about which beaches have sea glass.  It turns out that old dumping sites are where you need to go.  There are a few well know ones such as Glass Beach in Fort Bragg CA.   But also many others world wide.  Storms are supposed to unearth old sites of beach glass.  But I think you are better off asking locals about where the town dump used to be 50-100 years ago!  A how-to-method for walking the beach and scouring for beach glass can also be found on the web.  I have a page on the 40 Beaches of East Hampton town.  Some of these beaches contain lots of sea glass, in particular around the ‘Promised Land’!

Finally I found an interesting story about Louise Rogers who made a fortune with her hobby of collecting sea glass.  She has over a million pieces that she found personally.

For now,  take care and happy beachcombing.  David

Genie, is a dear friend.  She reminded me of this piece I made for her a few years ago.  It is a glass bottle neck with a sapphire in silver.  I had forgotten about it!  (photo courtesy of Genie Posnett)

Genie's Sea Glass Necklace

I have also got some new sea glass pieces listed in ETSY.

Red Diamonds

Most of us do not realize that diamonds come in different colors. The typical clear and sparkling diamond is what De Beers has marketed for 100 years or so…but if you want to own something truly unique consider this.

Diamonds have an extremely rigid lattice. They can be contaminated by very few impurities. Thus the clear, colorless appearance of those diamonds designated ‘gem quality’. Small amounts of impurities (about one per million of lattice atoms) will color a diamond blue (boron), yellow (nitrogen), brown (lattice defects), green (radiation exposure), purple, pink, orange or red! ‘Plastic deformation’ is the cause of color in some brown and perhaps pink and red diamonds.

In 2008, the Wittelsbach Diamond, a 35 carat blue diamond, once belonging to the King of Spain, fetched over US$ 24 million at a Christie’s auction.

“Black” diamonds are not truly black, but rather contain numerous dark inclusions.

White dwarf stars have a core of crystallized carbon and oxygen nuclei. The largest of these found in the universe so far, BPM 37093, is located 50 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics described the 2,500-mile (4,000 km)-wide stellar core as a diamond. It was referred to as Lucy, after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”.

I was recently on ETSY, a site for handmade crafts including jewelry. I searched this huge site with about 250,000 virtual shops for ‘red diamonds‘. Click and take a look.

Gold ring with rough diamonds: 2 are yellow and 2 are red.

There are more red diamonds here.

JEWELRY FOR ANIMAL LOVERS

We recently saw an amazing documentary: “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” by Werner Herzog. This film describes artwork created some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago at a time when woolly mammoths reigned. The depictions of animals, such as horses, rhinoceros, and lions, are incredibly sophisticated and the artist even employs animation methods to give the impression of movement. I take this as evidence that animals have long been a favored subject of artists, even when we were still cave dwellers.

During the Renaissance, Albrecht Durer (1471 – 1528) was a master artist famous for his prints. Beautifully detailed pictures of animals (and plants) testify to his love of nature. Interestingly Albrecht’s father was a goldsmith.

Shah Jahan, famous for building the Taj Mahal, had a fabulous statue of his falcon made. It is completely covered in precious jewels. I saw this piece in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, and have previously posted on this topic. So I take it that jewelry representing your favorite pet is an age-old thing!

I have a favorite pet too. My dog Kenda, a two year old german shepherd:

Kenda

I have studied her paws and her paw prints (such as her tracks in the snow):

Paw of German Shepherd

And here is an example of jewelry depicting her paw. This one is in Sterling silver with chocolate diamonds. It is a pendent about 3/4 inches in diameter and hangs on a silver chain:

Dog paw pendent with chocolate diamonds

This is a small silver plaque with paw prints etched on it. The idea came from my fantastic dog trainer, Gail Murphy. Kenda loves Gail more than anyone. You can have the name of your dog etched or hammered on to this plaque.

Dog Paw Tracks

And I am working on some other ideas, but I would really love to hear from you, specially all of you with pets that you are crazy about!

Snake rings

My 15 year old daughter is going through a rebel phase. She talks about tattoos and piercings and she wanted a snake ring! So I made her a ring in silver with a chocolate diamond on its head and little ruby eyes:

Snake ring

This got me thinking and researching on the web. I found that present day celebrities and Hollywood personalities are also in to snake rings.
Nicole Richie, Angelina Jolie, Adam Lambert (of American Idol fame), Paris Hilton, Heidi Klum, Elisabeth Taylor, Jennifer Lopez, and even Michelle Obama own serpent rings and many can be seen on the web if you just google their names.

The fictitious character of Lucius Malfoy (from the Harry Potter series) also sports a snake ring, presumably as a reminder of his Slytherin House heritage. The Potter stories are rife with allusions to serpent mythology. Both Harry and He-Who-Must–Not–Be-Named speak Parseltongue (the language of snakes) and the monster snake Nagini, has a central role in the series.

So I wondered where this trend comes from. Romans and Greeks may have started the trend, but it was Queen Victoria herself who famously received a gold snake ring, meant to give good luck, as an engagement ring from Prince Albert. At that time serpent rings were very popular. The snake motif, was believed to be the sign of eternal love.

Interestingly, serpents are part of the mythology of nearly every human culture. These mythical creatures can be threatening and bad (the snake in the story of Adam and Eve), but they can also be good and comforting, such as the snake on the staff of Aesculapius, the mythical greek healer, which is now the emblem of modern day medicine.

If you are in to psychology there is tons of stuff on snakes. In particular C.G. Jung was fascinated by the Ouroboros, an ancient symbol showing a serpent eating its own tail. One drawing of the Ourobouros dates back to Cleopatra. This symbol shows up in an amazing number of different historical civilizations: ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, India (Kundalini energy in Yoga), Aztec and Toltec ruins in Mexico, Norse mythology, Alchemists, Freemasonry, and West African religions…The Wiki site has more details and references.

In current times, however, I think the trend to wear a snake ring is either due to a fascination with reptiles (my 15 year old would have a pet snake if I allowed it) or it is a manifestation of rebellion and counterculture. This fits well with general teen behavior, but also with the bad boy image of the Adam Lambert, the tumultuous life of Nicole Richie, and the rebellious history of Angelina Jolie who famously once said “I am…just a punk kid with tattoos”.

To see more recent work visit us on Etsy or on our MSJ website.

More on Jingle Shells (Anomia Simplex)

A friend recently pointed out that some jingle shells are rippled. She even wondered whether they were a different species! Others opined that the ripples were due to the mollusc adhering on a rippled substrate, for example on top of a scallop with pronounced ripples in its shell structure. Today I think I found some evidence for this on our beach.

scallop with jingle and slipper shells adhering on top

The following are a few pictures of a brown scallop that had just washed ashore with still adherent orange jingle shell. Both the lower valve and the upper, orange valve of the jingle shell are rippled to closely adhere to the rippled structure of the scallop.

both jingle shell valves are rippled

Conveniently there was a slipper shell adherent on the same scallop, or rather 2 slipper shells, one on top of the other, as they often tend to do. The slipper shells showed no ripples. Even the margins in contact with the scallop had not assumed the rippled structure of the scallop.

open jingle showing mollusc and rippled valves

How to interpret these findings? I would say that the Anomia simplex has resided on this very same scallop for a long long time and perhaps for its entire life! How else would it have assimilated the scallop structure over its entire shell structure for both lower and upper (orange) valves? By contrast, I think the slipper shell likely migrated on to this substrate and had previously lived on a different substrate. The jingle shell could be described as a “resident” and the slipper shell as a “migrant”!

orange jingle shell adhering on scallop and assuming rippled structure

While this is but one example and it would be dangerous to conclude that all A. simplex behave this way, it is none the less OK to conclude that some A. simplex may grow up from infancy and remain on the same substrate for their entire lives!

I would welcome your thoughts!

scallop with adherent orange jingle and slipper shells

Conflict Free Diamonds: Really?

For those of us who love diamonds but want only to deal with conflict free diamonds, recent news from Zimbabwe is of concern. It is a good time to review the Kimberley Process and ask whether you can be sure where your diamond comes from!

The Kimberley Process is an alliance of industry, civic and government officials set up to stop the flow of so-called blood diamonds. The process regulates the sale of rough diamonds on an exchange. All lots of diamonds must be Kimberley certified. Only Kimberley certified diamonds are sold in the United States and some 70 other countries that are members of the Kimberley Process.

The Marange fields in Zimbabwe were discovered in 2006. De Beers obtained a concession to mine these fields but let this lapse, due perhaps to the political crisis in Zimbabwe. A frenzied diamond rush ensued by starving and impoverished miners desperately seeking relief from the country’s ongoing humanitarian crises. A thriving black market followed with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 illegal artisan miners working the land and illegally selling their diamond finds to dealers outside the country.

Marange diamonds are mostly of lower quality (providing for industrial diamonds), but about 5% are gem quality and the mine field could yield up to 1.7 billion US$ in annual earnings representing more than a third of the entire gross national product (GNP) of Zimbabwe. The mine is state-owned and the income goes directly to support Robert Mugabe as the mines are overseen by his party, ZANU-PF, and guarded by an army that reports to him.

Herein lies the problem. Zimbabwe’s Diamond Fields were appropriated forcefully by Mugabe’s people using extreme cruelty. Currently, the diamonds are sold on the black market by his associates including Zimbabwe’s armed forces and the riches support him, his army and his party. A Human Rights Watch report charged that the military killed more than 200 miners and used the push to seize the Marange fields. Moreover the party, ZANU-PF, has used the money from diamonds — smuggled out of the country or illegally sold through the Reserve Bank — to reinforce its hold over the security forces, which seemed to be slipping last year as the value of soldiers’ pay collapsed with soaring inflation. In Dec 2009 there were riots by disaffected soldiers because of lack of pay. Army brigades are being rotated into the diamond fields, so more soldiers can profit from the illegal trade. Villagers from the area, some of them children, are being forced to work in mines controlled by military syndicates and have complained of being harassed, beaten and arrested, the report says.

The World Federation of Diamond Bourses, an umbrella group of 28 bourses in 20 countries, called on its members in April not to trade diamonds that originate in the Marange deposits in Zimbabwe. And now the issue is before the Kimberly Commission which supposedly assures us that diamonds are “conflict free”. To review how the Kimberly Process works here is a bit of history!

Following the resumption of the Angolan civil war by UNITA, a rebel group in Angola, the United Nations passed sanctions that remained ineffective. The UN then empowered Robert Fowler (a Canadian ambassador to the UN) to lead a panel of experts to investigate. UNITA used a number of channels to sell or barter diamonds for cash or weapons. In one such scheme, Joe de Deker, a former stockholder in De Beers, worked with the government of Zaire to supply military equipment to UNITA from 1993 to 1997. De Deker’s brother, Ronnie, was an arms dealer who allegedly traveled with him from South Africa to Angola, trading weapons originating in Eastern Europe. In return, UNITA gave Ronnie bushels of diamonds worth US$6 million. De Deker sent the diamonds to De Beer’s buying office in Antwerp, Belgium. De Beers openly acknowledges spending $500 million on legal and illegal Angolan diamonds in 1992 alone. UNITA made at least $3.72 billion, or 93% of all diamond sales, despite international sanctions.

The Fowler report led to a meeting of Southern African diamond-producing states in Kimberley, Northern Cape in May 2000 and later to the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1295 and the establishment of the Kimberley Process.

In order for a country to be a participant, it must make sure that any diamond originating from the country does not finance a rebel group or other entity seeking to overthrow a UN-recognized government, that every diamond export be accompanied by a Kimberley Process certificate and that no diamond is imported from, or exported to, a non-member of the scheme. By restricting diamond revenues to government-approved sources, the Kimberley Process supports all governments, bad ones and good ones! It also denies revenues to all rebel groups, bad ones and potentially good ones fighting against a repressive regime! The Kimberly scheme is only a soft law and not legally binding. However, failure to comply has led to removal of the non-complying member countries in several cases.

The Kimberly scheme is essentially self-enforced. Supervision of the process is by the Chair, elected on an annual basis at a plenary meeting. This year we have a new chairing country: Israel. Peer review is conducted by a team of experts. They visit member countries and inspect implementation of the scheme. But all of this does not help when the offending party is a government itself, and not a rebel group. This is because the Kimberley Process was not set up to deal with governments like the one headed for many years by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, arguably one of the most cruel and repressive governments on the globe.

As deliberations dragged on in Israel last week, Zimbabwe warned that it might export its diamonds without the approval of the United Nations-backed Kimberley Process. Moreover, there is a divide among the 70 countries that take part in the Kimberley Process. Some take the side of the Mugabe government, as summed up in a opinion piece by Stephen Gowans, and published in the official newspaper of the Zimbabwe government, The Herald, on June 30th 2010.

As reported on June 24th in the New York Times, “a sub-group of the Kimberley Process will try again next month to reach a compromise on Zimbabwe, said Eli Izhakoff, president of the World Diamond Council. He said it would be a very negative development if Zimbabwe traded its diamonds illegally, possibly undermining consumer confidence”.

We could not agree more! The designation “Kimberley Certified” risks becoming meaningless. Whether the perpetrators of violence are a rebel group or a repressive regime is of no concern to the customer. It is good to remember that ultimately the violent strife in Zimbabwe or elsewhere, is funded by the customer buying a diamond ring. Many will see Zimbabwe diamonds as “blood diamonds”.

Sources and further reading:
1) Zimbabwe’s Diamond Fields Enrich Ruling Party, Report Says
By CELIA W. DUGGER, Published: June 26, 2009

2) Diamond Find Could Aid Zimbabwe, and Mugabe
By CELIA W. DUGGER, Published: June 21, 2010

3) Zimbabwe Diamonds Fail to Get Conflict-Free Approval
By CELIA W. DUGGER, Published: June 24, 2010

4) Background: Zimbabwe’s Marange Diamond Mines, by Martin Rapaport.

5) Zimbabwe: Diamonds, When Regime Change is Forever.
Stephen Gowans, June 30, 2010, The Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe

JINGLE SHELLS

I am fortunate. I get to walk on the beach every morning! Among the treasures we find, none are as cheery and colorful as jingle shells. They are so named because artisans have long been assembling them in to lamp shades and wind chime curtains. When you shake them they truly do jingle. Their scientific name is Anomia simplex. They also go by “Neptune’s toe nails” or the amusing misnomer “Mermaid’s toe nails”. Another name is “Saddle Oyster”, which indicates that Anomia are related to oysters. However, Anomia taste bitter and are of no commercial value.

They are found along the entire Atlantic sea coast from Nova Scotia to Brazil. A hardy species it seems. Anomia are mollusks (within the group of bivalves) that attach themselves to a surface by means of the ‘bysuss’, a tuft of calcified fibrils that penetrates through a hole in the lower valve to adhere to the underlying surface (see Figures1,2).

Figure 1: Yellow and orange Anomia adherent on a beach stone and Anomia with inner valve attached depicting the hole for the bysuss.

This may be a large clam shell, a rock, or another hard surface such as logs, wharfs or boats. They live in shallow waters often close to the beach, in a bay or estuary. The upper valve is brightly colored, either a shiny yellow or orange. Shades of silvery grey and black are present when Anomia are submerged in the mud and silt at the sea bottom. Interestingly, the lower valve is white, light grey or colorless. Is the bright yellow or orange color perhaps dependent on light filtering through the shallow waters? Is the purpose of the color to protect against a predator such as oyster drills, starfish and crabs (which are collectively referred to as boring gastropods). This seems unlikely as predators are supposed to find their food by scent not sight, as pointed out to me by Paul Monfils.

Figure 2: Two Anomia adherent on a beachstone. The orange upper valve has detached revealing the lower valve and the adherent mollusk.

Anomia shells are extremely thin and paper-like such that they are often translucent, thus easy prey, one would think. Small holes are frequently found on the upper valve usually placed just where the animal is situated at the top of the shell. These small holes look like the mark of a predator, but they are by no means present on all shells that wash up on the beach. These animals must die of other causes too.

Personally I am most interested in their color. Why either yellow or orange? And how do these bright colors serve to enhance survival of this species.

Figure 3: Bright yellow and orange Anomia simplex adhering on a beach stone.

My own observations from our beach, situated on a natural bay of Long Island (New York State) are that greater than 99% of Anomia are either yellow or orange, the rest being either silvery, or blackened. Neither yellow or orange predominate. These numbers do not vary dramatically with the tides or with the seasons (e.g. temperature). Both yellow and orange come in all sizes varying between approx 1-4 cm in diameter. Both yellow and orange are susceptible to drill holes (see above). Yellow and orange animals cohabitate in close proximity on rocks or large clam shells. They may even adhere partially on top of each other and they share their solid surface habitat with others shells, mostly Crepidula fornicata (slipper shell), as shown in Figure 3,4. The latter are considered an invasive species and are known to damage commercial oysteries: http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-1711

Figure 4: Several Anomia simplex (5) of different colors and slipper shells (6) all adhering to a single large clam shell.

Anomia collected from different locations may have different colorings. Anecdotal evidence (courtesy of Steve Rosenthal) has it that Anomia collected from western beaches of Long Island are less brightly colored than those from the eastern beaches. And pictures of Anomia from Florida beaches (http://www.squidoo.com/seashell-identification) reveal many shades of silvery white and grey and black, that seem much less prevalent on our beaches. Thus location and habitat my affect coloring.

Different colors and patterns on scallops and mussel shells are genetically determined. Therefore it is likely that the yellow and orange colors of Anomia could also be genetically encoded. Since Anomia can be bred in the laboratory I would like to know whether all offspring of yellow Anomia are yellow and those of parental orange color remain orange. The enigmatic question of how the color helps this organism survive could be experimentally addressed with laboratory experiments in which selected predators are added in a controlled way.

In the meantime I will continue to walk the beaches and collect Anomia to make ear rings and other colorful jewelry (Figure 5). Out here these shells are quite familiar and are collected by many beach goers. They remind us all of hot summer days on the beaches of Long Island.

Figure 5: Jingle ear rings with yellow pearls, with hematite, with green onyx and with turquoise beads (from left to right).

Triple Jingle shell ear rings with pearls

See:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/maidstonejewelry?ref=si_shop&view_type=list

http://www.maidstonejewelry.com

Further reading:
1) Partial Metamorphosis in Anomia simplexAuthor(s): V. L. Loosanoff. Science, New Series, Vol. 133, No. 3470 (Jun. 30, 1961), pp. 2070-2071.

2) Genetics of shell color in mytilus edulis l. and the association of growth rate with shell color. Gary F. Newkirk J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol., 1980, Vol. 47. pp. 89-94.

3) Comparison of the composition of fossil and recent mollusk shells. Pilkey OH, Goodell, HG. Geological Soc of Amer Bulletin, 75:217-228, 1964.

4) A Jingle (Shell) in Your Pocket, By Patricia B. Mitchell.
http://www.mitchellspublications.com/guides/shells/articles/0001/

5) http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=156737

6) Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomiidae

JEWELRY IN THE MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART, DOHA (Qatar)

OK! This is only in part about jewelry… I am writing from Doha in Qatar. I am here on business for my 3rd annual trip.

But this time I got to visit the newly opened Museum of Islamic Art. It is a majestic structure on the Corniche (bay) of Doha built by IM Pei, arguably the most noted present day architect of museums, having designed the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the pyramid structure of the Louvre in Paris, and the Miho Museum in Japan. Seen from certain angles the museum in Doha looks like a veiled woman. There are many breathtaking vistas of Doha from the Museum. The Museum of Islamic Art covers a lot: 7th to 19th century art and artifacts including textiles, metalwork, scientific and astronomic instruments, architectural design, carpets, paintings, lots of calligraphy, glass and ivory objects, and jewelry! The latter is why I went in the first place, of course. The museum is a “must see”.

The objects on exhibit are very carefully chosen and well displayed. Here are some of the highlights I found:

A monster necklace belonging to the Indian 17th century Mughal emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan sporting one inch pink spinels (some of which are engraved with the emperors names), diamonds, pearls and gold.

A haldili of Shah Jahan. This is a calligraphic jade pendant worn to cure the wearer of heart palpitations. The emperor wore this to help him recover from grief after the death of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal in 1631.

Unbelievable paired gold filigree bracelets, worn on both wrists during the Fatimid period in Egypt/Syria from the 11th century. Similar ones are depicted here.

And, my favorite, the Jeweled Falcon, also from Shah Jahan, and dated 1640. This 10 inch bird is completely covered with gold, enamel, inlaid rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and onyx! To see this bird click here.

This museum is well worth a visit, even a detour, to Doha if you are in this area of the world.

On my way home, I decided to walk. It was 5:30 PM and the hotel was on the other side of the Corniche. I guessed, maybe 4 miles away and about 1 hour at a brisk pace? There was lightening in the distance and the sky looked ominous. Would I get drenched? The Corniche is bordered by park grounds, and this is where people spend their time off, along the water. It is a great walk to observe people.

Doha is such a clash of cultures, I thought. There is the traditional, the veiled women in a black abaya and/or hijab, men in white thobes with a white or red checkered ghutra covering the head, mosques everywhere in the background. And there are the young people who wear jeans and tee shirts with English words on them. One such shirt read: “Everybody wants to be just like me!” I smiled at the young man and he smiled back. One young woman was sitting on a bench, completely veiled in black abaya, but she was wearing hot pink high-healed shoes!

On the water there were young men on jets skis going at top speed perilously close to the rocky shore, or doing flips in the air and crashing in to the water to the applause from the walkway! Then there were joggers, perhaps a dozen: all men, except for one woman in a sports bra. This is just like Central Park, in New York, I thought. These joggers were likely not Qataris. I think they were what are called “guest workers” or “ex-pats”. For every Qatari, there are about 5 or 6 guest workers in this country. Many have menial jobs maintaining the hotels or building the high rises under construction everywhere. They come from the different countries lining the Indian ocean. There has been concern about how they are treated, for example in neighboring Dubai. Others are from Europe or the United States. There are major international companies with a large presence in Qatar, such as the French oil and gas company Total. I had previously met some French people working in Doha for Total.

I passed the Emirs’ palace, a government building. Then there is a 36 foot clam shell with a pearl in it, a well know landmark sculpture in town. I passed Balhambra, a local restaurant on the water, and the large statue of Orry the Oryx, a Qatari version of a Disney character it seemed to me.

I passed enormous billboards for QNB (Qatar National Bank) offering mortgage loans to young Qatari couples! Behind the billboards, one high-rise under construction after the other. I tried to remember the name of the construction companies: Al Jaber was one of them. I passed a new high rise called Al Bidda: a twisted triangular structure, not much to my liking.

Finally, I passed through a lovely large meadow with a playground, swings, sand, lots of kids chasing balls, or one another. In the shadows of the park there was even a couple being affectionate, but as I approached they shrank away from one another. Then a long row of flowering white Rhododendron plants leading up to the pyramid structure of the Sheraton hotel.

That is all for now. Take care. David

WEDDING RINGS

I have been wondering about wedding rings. Why do we wear them? When and how did this tradition originate?

Jewelry itself is as old as mankind. Prehistoric artifacts from 82,000 years ago have shown that homo sapiens in Marocco, and perhaps homo neanderthal too, made necklaces of perforated sea shells. A nice picture is found on page 8 of “Jewelry: from antiquity to the Present” depicting a necklace of perforated clam shells and small animal bones from 38,000 BC. That is before the last ice age and that is when woolly mammoths roamed across America. Along with necklaces of teeth and bones of hunted prey, these items possibly served as powerful talismans to be worn by the hunter and not just for decorative purposes. Special protection and powers from deities were expected.

Common lore portends that early Egyptians first used wedding bands fashioned of reeds from the banks of the Nile perhaps around 4000 BC. They were replaced by metal rings as soon as metallurgy was discovered. Gold jewelry first appeared in Mesopotamia around 2500 BC. Many of the same jewelry techniques we use today, were already in use in antiquity including repoussee, granulation and wax techniques using gypsum molds. At the royal tombs of Ur in Mesopotamia, Queen Pu-abi, for instance, wore a ring on each finger and among her 63 attendants buried with her, the women wore intricate headbands, ear rings, necklaces, bracelets and rings and the men wore ear rings, necklaces, armlets, bracelets and pectoral ornaments. At the site of ancient Troy a treasure of jewelry was found including 8000 small rings dating 2200 BC. In Egypt scarab rings were particularly common and served as a portable seal with a hieroglyph signature. You can see many samples in the Metropolitan Museum of New York and other museums of antiquity.

In ancient Rome , marriage rings became a symbol of a contract. Iron was adopted as the metal of choice rather than copper, brass or gold. Acceptance of the rings was considered legally binding. The betrothal ring was usual, but not required and was exchanged prior to the wedding like an engagement ring. It signified eternal commitment and was worn on the left ring finger because the vein of this finger (vena amoris) was thought to lead directly to the heart. In the later stages of roman civilization excessive gold rings were sported.

It was the church that then bestowed religious significance on the wedding rings with benediction of the rings beginning in the 11th century. In Jewish texts reference to rings may be much earlier. This led to our current day religious ceremonies:
Church of England (1662 Book of Common Prayer) – “With this ring I thee wed, …
Judaism – “With this ring, you are consecrated to me according to the law of Moses and Israel.”
Roman Catholic – “… take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Eastern Orthodox – “The servant of God (name) is betrothed to the handmaid of God (name), in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” said three times while the Priest makes the Sign of the Cross with the ring over the bridegroom’s and then the bride’s head.

But some religions frown on wedding rings. Quakers in particular, who claim the tradition is heathen. And Muslims, who either quote the prophet: “Wearing gold is forbidden for male Muslims, but it is allowed for female Muslims” or decry this western tradition.

Never the less, present day customs across the world nearly all involve some kind of wedding rings, although there are many amusing curiosities. In some countries wedding rings are worn on the right hand rather than on the left ring finger. In the Netherlands Catholics wear it on the left and Protestants on the right! Hindus sometimes wear a toe ring called bichiya. In east Bengal a bangle is worn by married women, in stead of a ring. Traditional Russian wedding rings are three interlocking bands of rose, white and yellow gold, worn on the right hand.

Wearing a wedding ring is not only a personal symbol of enduring commitment and eternal love, but also a public symbol, advertising marital and availability status. Every culture appears to have a set of customs by which women (and men to some extent) announce their availability. We came across a quaint custom on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where women wear a colorful head piece, called the Tête en l’air arranged with one or more peaks which represent various levels of romantic commitment: one peak means ‘my heart is free’, two peaks means ‘my heart is engaged but you can try’, three peaks mean ‘my heart is engaged and committed’, and four peaks means ‘anyone who tries is welcome’!

In discussing modern periods, a recent textbook on the history of jewelry concludes that “the major international [jewelry] houses have continued to work…following styles evolved from previous decades, [but that] innovation has come…from individual artist craftsmen trained at art schools”.

If you are looking for wedding rings, and public symbolism is important to you, you probably want to find a conventional and traditional set of engagement and wedding rings (that everyone will recognize as such). A nice custom is to use family heirloom rings from grandparents.

If on the other hand private symbolism and personal tastes are more important to the couple, there are some interesting modern day trends. You can personalize your rings by incorporating your fingerprints on your rings, or hidden messages to each other, or get a set of rings that join like puzzle pieces, and you can check out at least 500 other imaginative ideas! Working with a custom jeweler/artist you can make tailor-made rings to suit your special needs. It does not have to be expensive. Remember, the major expense in wedding/engagement rings is the gem (diamond) accounting for approx. >70% of the final price. Check out our website for more on this!

Take care, David

4 colored rough diamonds set in a silver wedding band