The established presence of viable Jewish communities in Africa over several millenia--extending from Nubia and Egypt, across the Mediterranean littoral, and across the desert into sub-Saharan Africa via numerous trade routes--brings into play not only the unique historic role performed by Jewish traders-cum-scholars-cum-artisans, but highlights their contribution to a particular artistic field of endeavor: working with rare metals.
The centuries-old trade in gold unfolded across and beyond the African continent within an Islamized milieu which proscribed the handling and wearing of gold (by men), and within both an Islamic and European framework which frowned strongly on "usurious" practices. The resultant virtual Jewish monopoly in gold mining, minting and smithing technology and style offers not only a particularly creative avenue of historic investigation into the arts of adornment, but insights into the way the meanings associated with some of this artisanry was transformed over time and in space. The Jewish diaspora in Africa unfolded in an environment completely different from the world the Jews knew elsewhere: different forms of adaptation, acculturation and integration, essential for survival and success, led to what might be termed the Africanization of the Judaic heritage.
This paper examines several classic pendant types, whose basic style and technology extends along the network of trade routes across the African continent, by focusing on the etymology of named pieces, the etymology of patronyms and honorifics associated with the gold and silver smiths who created them, and the associative magical and apotropaic powers which, like the facets of a cut stone, reflect different hues of the cultural ambiance which created them.