the beauty of design or perfection of workmanship could be obtained
by hand at, probably, any cost. The question therefore in relation
to chains is not the mode of manufacture, but the quality of the metal.
Eighteen carat gold is of course preferred by those who wear chains,
but this is only gold in the proportion of 18 to 24, pure gold being
represented by 24. The gold coin of the realm is 22 carat; that is,
it contains one-twelfth of alloy to harden it to stand wear and tear.
Thus 18 carat gold has one-fourth of alloy, and so on with lower
qualities down to 12, which is in reality only gold by courtesy.
It must be remembered that the alloys are made by weight, and as
gold is nearly twice as heavy as the metal it is mixed with, it only
forms a third of the bulk of a 12 carat mixture.
The application of machinery to the production of personal ornaments in gold and silver can only be economically and successfully carried on when there is a large demand for similar objects, that is to say, objects of precisely the same design and decoration throughout. In machine-made jewelry everything is stereotyped, so to speak, and the only work required for the hand is to fit the parts together—in some instances scarcely that. A design is made, and from it steel dies are sunk for stamping out as rapidly as possible from a plate of rolled metal the portion represented by each die. It is in these steel dies that the skill of the artist die-sinker is manifested. Brooches, ear-rings, pinheads, bracelets, lockets, pendants, &c., are struck out by the gross. This is more especially the case in silver and in plated work—that is, imitation jewelry—the base of which is an alloy, afterwards gilt by electro-plating. With these ornaments imitation stones in paste and glass, pearls, &c., are used, and it is remarkable that of late years some of the best designs, the most simple, appropriate and artistic, have appeared in imitation jewelry. It is only just to those engaged in this manufacture to state distinctly that their work is never sold wholesale for anything else than what it is. The worker in gold only makes gold or real jewelry, and he only makes of a quality well known to his customers. The producer of silver work only manufactures silver ornaments, and so on throughout the whole class of plated goods.
It is the retailer who, if he is unprincipled, takes advantage of the ignorance of the buyer and sells for gold that which is in reality an imitation, and which he bought as such. The imitations of old styles of jewelry which are largely sold in curiosity shops at foreign places of fashionable resort are said to be made in Germany, especially at Munich.
Bibliography.—For the Dāhshur jewels, see J. de Morgan and others; Fouilles à Dahchour, Mars-Juin 1894 (Vienna, 1895) and Fouilles à Dahchour en 1894–1895 (Vienna, 1903). For the Aah-hotep jewels, see Mariette, Album de Musée de Boulaq, pls. 29–31; Birch, Facsimiles of the Egyptian Relics discovered in the Tomb of Queen Aah-hotep (1863). For Cretan excavations, see A. J. Evans, in Annual of the British School at Athens, Nos. 7 to 11; Archaeologia, vol. lix. For excavations at Enkomi, see Excavations in Cyprus, by A. S. Murray and others (1900). For Schliemann’s excavations, see Schliemann’s works; also Schuchhardt, Schliemann’s Excavations; Perrot & Chipiez, Histoire de l’Art, vi. For the Greek Island treasure, see A. J. Evans, Journal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. For Ephesus gold treasure, see D. G. Hogarth, British Museum Excavations at Ephesus; The Archaic Artemisia. For the Hermitage Collection from South Russia, see Gillé, Antiquités du Bosphore Cimmérien (reissued by S. Reinach), and the Comptes rendus of the Russian Archaeological Commission (St Petersburg). For later jewelry, Pollak, Goldschmiedearbeit. For Treasure of Pétrossa, A. Odobesco, Le Trésor de Pétrossa. For the European and west Asiatic barbaric jewelry, see O. M. Dalton, in Archaeologia, lviii. 237, and the Treasure of the Oxus (British Museum, 1905). For the whole history, G. Fontenay, Les Bijoux anciens et modernes (Paris [Quantin], 1887). For the recent movement, Léonce Bénédite, “La Bijouterie et la joaillerie, à l’exposition universelle; René Lalique,” in the Revue des arts décoratifs, 1900 (July, August). (A. H. Sm.)
JEWETT, SARAH ORNE (1840–1909), American novelist, was born in South Berwick, Maine, on the 3rd of September 1849. She was a daughter of the physician Theodore H. Jewett (1815–1878), by whom she was greatly influenced, and whom she has drawn in A Country Doctor (1884). She studied at the Berwick Academy, and began her literary career in 1869, when she contributed her first story to the Atlantic Monthly. Her best work consists of short stories and sketches, such as those in The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). The People of Maine, with their characteristic speech, manners and traditions, she describes with peculiar charm and realism, often recalling the work of Hawthorne. She died at South Berwick, Maine, on the 24th of June 1909.
Among her publications are: Deephaven (1877), a series of sketches; Old Friends and New (1879); Country By-ways (1881); A Country Doctor (1884), a novel; A Marsh Island (1885), a novel; A White Heron and other Stories (1886); The King of Folly Island and other People (1888); Strangers and Wayfarers (1890); A Native of Winby and other Tales (1893); The Queen’s Twin and other Stories (1899), and The Tory Lover (1901), an historical novel.
JEWS (Heb. Yĕhūdi, man of Judah; Gr. Ἰουδαῖοι; Lat. Judaei), the general name for the Semitic people which inhabited Palestine from early times, and is known in various connexions as “the Hebrews,” “the Jews,” and “Israel” (see § 5 below). Their history may be divided into three great periods: (1) That covered by the Old Testament to the foundation of Judaism in the Persian age, (2) that of the Greek and Roman domination to the destruction of Jerusalem, and (3) that of the Diaspora or Dispersion to the present day.
I.—Old Testament History
I. The Land and the People.—For the first two periods the history of the Jews is mainly that of Palestine. It begins among those peoples which occupied the area lying between the Nile on the one side and the Tigris and the Euphrates on the other. Surrounded by ancient seats of culture in Egypt and Babylonia, by the mysterious deserts of Arabia, and by the highlands of Asia Minor, Palestine, with Syria on the north, was the high road of civilization, trade and warlike enterprise, and the meeting-place of religions. Its small principalities were entirely dominated by the great Powers, whose weakness or acquiescence alone enabled them to rise above dependence or vassalage. The land was traversed by old-established trade routes and possessed important harbours on the Gulf of ʽAkaba and on the Mediterranean coast, the latter exposing it to the influence of the Levantine culture. It was “the physical centre of those movements of history from which the world has grown.” The portion of this district abutting upon the Mediterranean may be divided into two main parts:—Syria (from the Taurus to Hermon) and Palestine (southward to the desert bordering upon Egypt). The latter is about 150 m. from north to south (the proverbial “Dan to Beersheba”), with a breadth varying from 25 to 80 m., i.e. about 6040 sq. m. This excludes the land east of the Jordan, on which see Palestine.
From time to time streams of migration swept into Palestine and Syria. Semitic tribes wandered northwards from their home in Arabia to seek sustenance in its more fertile fields, to plunder, or to escape the pressure of tribes in the rear. The course leads naturally into either Palestine or Babylonia, and, following the Euphrates, northern Syria is eventually reached. Tribes also moved down from the north: nomads, or offshoots from the powerful states which stretch into Asia Minor. Such frequently recurring movements introduced new blood. Tribes, chiefly of pastoral habits, settled down among others who were so nearly of their own type that a complete amalgamation could be effected, and this without any marked modification of the general characteristics of the earlier inhabitants. It is from such a fusion as this that the ancestors of the Jews were descended, and both the history and the genius of this people can be properly understood only by taking into account the physical features of their land and the characteristics of the Semitic races in general (see Palestine, Semitic Languages).
2. Society and Religion.—The similarity uniting the peoples of the East in respect of racial and social characteristics is accompanied by a striking similarity of mental outlook which has survived to modern times. Palestine, in spite of the numerous vicissitudes to which it has been subjected, has not lost its fundamental characteristics. The political changes involved in the Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian or Persian conquests surely affected it as little as the subsequent waves of Greek, Roman and other European invasions. Even during the temporary Hellenization in the second great period the character of the people as a whole was untouched by the various external influences which produced so great an effect on the upper classes. When the foreign civilization perished, the old culture once more came to the surface. Hence it is possible, by a comprehensive comparative study of Eastern peoples, in both ancient and modern times, to supplement and illustrate within certain limits our direct knowledge of the early Jewish people, and thus to understand more clearly those characteristics which were
