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Pearls have fascinated people all over the world for hundreds and hundreds of years. They have magic and mystique, a warmth and glow, and are the only gem created by a living organism.
Pearls are found in pearl oysters, although it wasn’t until the late 19th century that people fully understood how pearls were created. It was then that the relationship between pearl oysters and parasites was discovered.
It is when a foreign body of some sort, such as a grain of sand or a parasite finds its way into the oyster that it reacts. It coats the irritant with layer upon layer of the pearly substance known as ‘nacre’, and this gives the pearl its unique appearance and iridescent beauty.
This is the natural pearl, but its rarity and high price could not satisfy the demands of the consumers. What was needed was a way to guarantee a steady supply, and this lead to the discovery of the cultured pearl.
Culturing is a way to entice oysters to produce round pearls on demand. In this case, humans rather than nature introduce the irritant. The secret is to insert a piece of oyster epithelial membrane (the lip of mantle tissue) with a nucleus of shell or metal, into an oyster’s body. This causes the tissue to form a pearl sack, and that sack then secretes nacre to coat the nucleus, thus creating a pearl. |
History of Pearls
Before the creation of cultured pearls in the early 1900s, natural pearls were so rare and expensive that they were reserved almost exclusively for the noble and very rich.
No one can say who 'discovered's pearls – probably they were first found by ancient people searching the shores for food. The Romans and Egyptians prized pearls and used them as decorative items as far back as the 5th Century BC.
At the height of the Roman Empire a general paid for an entire military campaign by selling a pair of his mother’s pearl earrings. Legend has it that medieval knights wore pearls into battle believing that their magic would protect them from harm.
The principal oyster beds lay in the Persian Gulf, along the coasts of India and in the Red Sea. Chinese pearls came mostly from rivers and lakes whilst Japanese pearls were found in salt water. |
As Europe expanded into the New World and pearl beds were discovered in the waters of Central and South America, pearls became increasingly popular at the royal courts of Europe. Some countries passed laws forbidding all but nobility to wear them.
The popularity of pearls came at a price. By the 1800s overfishing had depleted most of the American oyster populations. Until the end of the 19th Century, pearls were available only to the rich.
Then, in the early 1900s, Kokichi Mikimoto developed the techniques that ultimately produced the first cultured pearls. Today, some of the least expensive cultured pearls rival the quality of the most expensive ones. |