Oldest Natural Pearl Found in Arabia

This 7.500 years old pearl is just the last of a series of findings at archeological sites in the Arabian Peninsula.
It is one of the unearthed 101 over the last years and were collected and used for their esthetic value and for funeral rites.

French researchers have unearthed the oldest natural pearl ever found at a Neolithic site in Arabia, suggesting that pearl oyster fishing first occurred in this region of the world.

Discovered in the Emirate of Umm al Quwain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the pearl was believed to have originated between 5547 and 5235 BC.

"Gemmologists and jewellers have popularised the idea that the oldest pearl in the world is the 5000-year-old Jomon pearl from Japan. Discoveries made on the shores of south-eastern Arabia show this to be untrue," Vincent Charpentier, Sophie Méry and colleagues at the French Foreign Ministry's archeological mission in the UAE, wrote in the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.

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reply to post by elevenaugust


I love pearls. And, I love reading about archeology. So...

Eastern cultures believe that pearls symbolize purity and spiritual transformation. Perhaps that is why they put them above the lips (probably in the little indentation) of the people they buried.

Thanks for posting!

Amazing how beautifully it still glows after all this time. Being organic, I am surprised it survived all those thousands of years. I wonder at the people who might have prized it and the creature who suffered to make it.

Amazing I love pearls so much that the first thing I did when I moved to Darwin NT, was to visit Paspaley pearls lol, I had no money, but the girls were so nice they let me try some on. amd OMG it will be the best and most luxurious treat throughout my entire life time. Yes that's how beautiful they feel rolling along your skin... heavenly ...big sigh

Thanks for this reminder op, I'll be off to bed now with wonderful dreams of me surrounded by pearls x x x

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