Arab jewelry made and worn by the Bedouin tribes in Saudi Arabia. The jewelry is almost always of silver, frequently set with turquoise, sometimes with stones of reddish colour. The pieces have distinctive forms and styles, with ornamentation frequently of chains, beads, bells and such local objects as Qur'an cases.
A woman’s jewelry symbolizes her status as a married women and later as a mother, as it is customary to gift one’s wife with jewelry for the birth of each child.
Traditionally, jewelry has also been thought to have magical powers. Turquoise in particular is believed to ward off the “evil eye.” At one time, popular legend had it that a turquoise stone would glow when its wearer was happy, but when the wearer was sad, the stone would become dull. Another popular myth was that the tiny tinkling bells prominent on so many pieces of
Arabian jewelry would protect the wearer by frightening off malevolent spirits with their noise.
