To Asp or not to Asp…that is the question.
The history of jewelry as it relates to its beginnings fascinate
me. Even more fascinating is the fact that I loathed history
above all things as a youthling. (Is that a word? If not…it is
now.)
So…you know those things women wear in their hair to keep it
in place? Called hairpins when it was in its more simple form.
Today, we have bobby pins, and berets, and even rubber bands if
one had a pony tail to keep together. But I digress. Here’s a
quick question. By a show of hands, how many of you know how old
the hairpin is? Wow. Tsk tsk. Not one hand up do I see. I’ll
keep y’all in suspense no longer. Try 10,000 years old.
But we don’t have to go back that far. Let shoot forward to
circa 69 B.C. And let’s have no comments about that date folks. I
took it out of a most reliable source. At that time the Greek and
the Roman women used a Bodkin, a long ornamental straight pin, to
fasten their hair. They were often made of gold and silver,
among many other materials.
Again aAt that time, there was a lady who preferred her hairpins
to be made of ivory, seven to eight inches long, and studded with
jewels. Romans of that time often hollowed out these bejeweled
hairpins and then filled them with poison. In them thar days, if
you insisted on yes yes yes when the object of your desire said
no no no, you ran the risk of being stabbed, and then slabbed,
never to say yes yes again.
Now here’s the story. Cleopatra, while not beautiful by any
means, regardless of the movie representations we’ve all seen,
never- the-less had, in full measure, the innate gift of
exciting men’s senses beyond every day parameters. Julius Caesar
and Mark Anthony surely quaked with passion when in the presence
of this seductive siren of yesteryear.
Those days were not much different from these days. Today one
fools around in the White House, yesterday one fooled around in
the Palace. Hey…people are people…right? Alas, politics and
wars did not work out right for dear old Cleo, and after Mark
Anthony killed himself, she followed suit and did the same. But
here’s the rub. One source says she killed herself by asp-bite,
because of the significance that a snake was the minister of
Amon-Ra, the sun God of the country’s religion. However, another
source says that dear old Cleo stabbed herself with one of her
poisoned and bejewelled hollow hairpins, dying from the lethal
amount of poison stashed therein.
So whaddya think folks? Asp? Or bejewelled hairpin?
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark
All issues of Tidbits are copyrighted and available from our home
page.
All rights reserved.
SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE E-MAIL NEWSLETTER: TIDBITS
http://www.tyler-adam.com
Any Day-Gifts Galore-Visit Tyler-Adam Corp.
–Browse the vast resources of TAC-Bourse–
–Our Diamond Search Engine–
TYLER-ADAM CORP.–Jewelry Manufacturers
Tel: 1-800-20-TYLER
E-Mail to: webmaster@tyler-adam.com