Myanmar Jewelry Jade Burmese Jewelry Ruby Burma Jewelry

pendants, necklaces, bracelets, bangles and rings. Usually a red-yellow mixture of 18.0-22 carat gold mixed with a bit copper is preferred, during the melting and blending process tamarind seeds that produced a non shiny surface with a slightly yellow reddish hue.

For certain type of precious items silver is used as base material. Since almost all material to create gorgeous

precious items are found in the country this kind of body decoration is very  popular. Other materials are jade, pearls, ruby, sapphire and the whole spectrum of semi precious stones. Although gold is mined in the country usually by gold-washing most gold is imported so are most diamonds, diamonds usually come over the border from India.

	Myanmar Jade jewelry is something special, usual are bangles, pendants, rings, bracelets, necklaces and more. In particular to Chinese people who consider the mineral itself has mystic properties. This green stone was used for various purposes such as knives, arrowheads, stamps and other since the material is very hard and durable, on the other hand it’s not easy to handle it. Today these precious items are only used for body decoration, without one exception in Chinese medicine; they still pulverize the stone, mix it with water and take to (maybe) cure various ailments. As for body decoration it comes in various forms such as jade pendants, necklaces, bangles, bracelets, earrings, rings, beads and other, one of the best items made from is a Jade Buddha usually in green, white or lavender color. Jade is the birth stone for people born during Virgo. Jade has been used in China for thousands of years	Myanmar jewelry
and became part of Chinese culture. Many use pendants as a talisman to provide health and happiness, strong roots in Buddhist culture is seen since most pendants have a Jade Buddha image carved into. One of the interesting thing with this material is it comes in plenty of colors actually almost all colors of the rainbow, most used colors are the whole green spectrum plus white, lavender, some red colors, such as pink and purple plus variants of blue. Good quality items always have some translucence, the more, the better a good rich color, good texture, no cracks. It needs to be careful because many crooks .
	handling the material in the workshop do all kind of nasty treatment to enhance the mineral. Such as filling cracks with raisin and injecting colors via heat treatment and more. The thing is, a casual jade buyer won’t see this and naturally they won’t tell. The problem starts after some years when the expensive piece starts to deteriorate and it can be thrown away. Jadeite is sometimes a cheap stone and sometimes very expensive, easily matching diamonds and other precious stones, e.g. at the Bogyoke Market in Yangon, Myanmar bangles are available for around $ 10, - and up to several thousand dollars, this is genuine Jade Jadeite, the Chinese, Canadian, Australian etc. version of the green stone is nephrite which has a lesser quality than jadeite which is almost only mined in Kachin state Burma, great bracelets and bangles are made from.

Myanmar Pearls

come from the “pear farms” of the Myeik Archipelago in the south and sometimes Salone pearl divers bring up the huge ousters from the bottom of the Andaman Sea. Before colonial times Chinese traders were buying them from the Salone and after the British kicked out the Chinese.

But the shabby Brits gave the divers opium and alcohol in exchange for the pearls, Chinese at trade the pearls against useful items. At traditional style items the Indian influence is very visible.

Myanmar people and Thai’s regard the head as the most sacred part of the body that naturally needs some decoration by necklaces, ear-rings and keeping the hair together, this is for both sexes. Mural paintings in various temples at Bagan and Mrauk U in Arakan or Rakhine State show women with this kind of body decoration.

At the Shite-thaung Temple at Mrauk U several dozen wall painting show different hair styles with various decoration, such as combs and hairpins to keep the hair in place they were made from turtle shell and ivory.

For everyday wear, colored cut glass and stones matching the color of the clothing are also used. At traditional jewellery polished cabochon from ruby and jade beads are used all those is great jewellery. In general most used are rubies, jade, gold, pearls and semi precious stones in recent times ethnic jewellery appeared in the Bogyoke market.

Some creative designer jewelry also uses other materials to be included into a great jewels. When visiting the country one of the best daytrips in Yangon is a visit to the Bogyoke Market. This wonderful oriental bazaar is in the old traditions of bazaars of the east, its absolute genuine you wont find this in any other Asian city anymore without all the technical marketing tricks everyone get confronted almost everuwhere.