Traditional replicas of Celtic jewellery can be made out of a choice of metals such as bronze, tin and gold. As a professional goldsmith, metalworker, and expert in historic jewellery recreation, Mike Shorer is an award-winning artist, who has been commissioned to create some bespoke pieces as well as replicas from history, including from the age of the Celts.
Celtic jewellery can be extremely varied, as those classed as Celtic, could be found all over Europe, and were defined as those whose language and culture was identified from Celtic origin. Due to the outspread nature of this culture, the type of Celtic historic jewellery reproduction depends very much on the area, and history of the local people. One thing is sure, there is a defined style and feel to the look and decorative nature of historic Celtic jewellery.
Some items are iconic as of being from a definite Celtic background. For example, the torc (or torque) is a very common Celtic piece. It can consist of either several strands of metal twisted together, or one piece of metal, shaped as a solid ring to fit and sit on the base of the neck. Rather than hanging from the neck, and having a fastening at the back, this Celtic Jewellery would usually have an opening that sat at the front of the necks jugular notch (or the small dent at the base of your neck, also known at the ‘neck dent’, where throat meets the torso). These items of jewellery could be worn by both men and women, and can also be found as a bracelet.
The time period that historic Celtic jewellery came from, is identified as the Iron age, a time when metalworking skills were being developed and therefore found its way into a lot of jewellery styles and production.
It is true that Celtic knots features a lot in Celtic art and some jewellery styles. However, it seems that a lot of modern Celtic jewellery styles were not to be found in the ancient Celtic communities. And although Celtic knots are very popular in todays choice of Celtic jewellery, the ancient celts and their jewellery styles were not limited to such patterns.
Historic Jewellery Reproduction (HJR) dedicates itself to the knowledge and true history of any of the cultures they are asked to replicate jewellery from. As a seventh generation of goldsmithing in his family, this has been a passion of Mike’s family for many years. Before the founding of this shop, Mike’s father pioneered and created new methods of moulding that allowed him to replicate original historic Celtic jewellery, as well as other historic pieces, in great detail, and also display the original pieces in all their glory.
In 2000, Historic Jewellery Reproduction recreated many historic Celtic pieces of Jewellery for the film Gladiator, and are now working to provide historic jewellery for film, museum displays and even special commissioned private pieces of jewellery. For more information, contact the company today, or have a look at their online shop.