STERLING SILVER CELTIC JEWELRY
Of all the themed speciality jewelry, Celtic jewelry is probably right up their with Chrisian jewelry, Religious jewelry, Egyptian jewelry and American Indian jewelry, as far popularity goes. The Celtic jewelry we will be talking about is sterling silver Celtic jewelry. Right now the finest precious metal jewelry that the average person can afford is sterling silver Celtic jewelry.
Celtic jewelry is engaging for many reasons. All of those reasons distill down to a few reasons which have to do with design and theme. The design is the Celtic Knot and Celtic geometric designs. We will be getting into more detail with Celtic Knot Jewelry in more detail.
Sterling Silver Celtic Earrings
The other theme includes the Celtic designs and knot and falls under Christian or Religious jewelry. If that seems strange to you then hold on and we will dig deeper into Celtic Cross Jewelry.
There are several styles of Celtic knot jewelry but there are three major kinds of Celtic Knot Jewelry. There is the Celtic Trinity Knot, the Celtic Eternity Knot and the geometric Celtic knot.
Celtic Trinity Knot
The Celtic Trinity knot is more of a modern invention in the naming convention. The trinity knot existed for centuries before the Christians came to the Ireland region and started to convert the Celtic to Christianity. The Christian missionaries saw the triangular shape of many knots and used that three points knot to teach about the Holy Trinity or Godhead. Each corner represented The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost.
This knot came to be knot as the Trinity Knot or Celtic Trinity Knot and eventually Christian Churches used them as holy icons.
Celtic Eternity Knot
By strict definition, any Celtic knot is a Celtic Eternity knot if the line making up the knot has no beginning or end to it. That's why there are two very different examples of a Celtic eternity knot. In fact there could be dozens of examples of Celtic eternity knot jewelry, but these two should do.
Celtic Eternity Knot
The Celts actually had their own definition in their pagan way of expressing eternity knots. They referred to them as "endless knots" of "infinity knot". To them the endless knots reminded them of the endless nature of the spirit within a man or women.
For the Celts it called to mind the cycles of birth, death and rebirth in an endless cycle. No one knows for sure if the rebirth meant an after life or reincarnation. The Celts didn't have a written language to detail their rich culture. But many scientists believe that the Celtic culture believed, one way or another that the spirit of mankind had no beginning or end and life was just a portion of a cycle.
Geometric Celtic KnotsTechnically all Celtic knots or designs fit under the genre of Celtic geometric knots. But originally, Celtic jewelry just reflected the traditional Celtic knots, which mostly fit under the Eternity knot style. For some unknown reason, some say it was part of their pagan style of worship, the Celts symbols were mostly geometric designs. Whether in Circles, Squares or Swirls, most Celtic knot have a geomteric component to them.
Over the last eight or ten years Celtic jewelry has grown in popularity. Since the majority of Celtic knot jewelry is geometric in design, jewelry makers had no problem creating more geometric designs and called them Celtic knot jewelry.
The serious student of Celtic culture and symbolism can sometimes detect a difference but even then, not always.
since there is no Celtic language to explain the meanings of Celtic culture there really is no problem for modern day Celtic jewelry wearers to assign a meaning to their Celtic knot jewelry. All of this new style Celtic jewelry can easily fit under the geometric style of Celtic jewelry.
When the Christians came to the Ireland region of the western coast of Europe where the last remain Celts lived, they started to convert the Celtis to Christianity. This creates a question as to the Celtic Cross. Which came first the chicken or the egg.
Scientists have felt like they have determined many grave markers that we know today as the Celtic cross were there before the Christians came to that region of Europe.
Others say that the Christians wanted to force their icons on the Celts as part of thier conversion. Some history claims that the Christians destroyed many icons and momuments to descourge their iconic worship.
Eventually a compromise was reached where the Celts added a "eternity symbol" or "circle of life" symbol at the intersection of the cross and the Christians accepted the compromise and all was well.
It's hard to know with Early Christian history and Celtic history the full truth. History is usually written by the victors in any struggle.
But now we have Celtic Cross Jewelry to add to Religious jewelry as a way to remember our Christian faith and worship. Notice some interesting points that can be brought out concerning the Celtic cross. Keep in mind that the original Celtic Cross was rather simple by Celtic cross jewelry standards of today.
This decorative Celtic cross pendant has both Celtic trinity knots on it andwhat looks like infinity symbols on it. Both Celtic symbols add a great degree of richness to the Celtic Cross jewelry.
This Celtic Cross pendant is far more authentic than most modern day Celtic crosses. There is a form of a solid circle in the middle with a famous old school Celtic weave throughout the cross. The real eternity circle is on the outside of the cross. It is called a "Celtic cross of protection".
To some this maybe called an Irish Cross Necklace becasue of the added clover at the center of the cross. It has all the same Celtic knot designs as the first Celtic cross. Remember how it was said that the added trinity and infinity symbols added more in symbolism to an already symbolic cross. The Irish clover adds even more symbolism if you buy into ancient Irish legand.
The legand goes that St. Patrick used the three leafed clover as a teaching aid to teach the Holy Trinity or Godhead to the Celts. Each petal represented a member of the Trinity. So by adding the clover to the Celtic cross necklace you've added another layer of christian symbolism.
This Celtic/Irish Cross pendant is of modern design. The cross is made from a Celtic weave and the traditional circle is replaces with the symbolically rich clover.
There is so much more that can be said about Celtic jewelry from the Celtic knot jewelry and the Celtic Cross jewelry persepctive as well as other perspectives. But if you follow the links on this blog you can learn even more.
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