“Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba”
with
Marjorie Ransom
Author
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
The Jerusalem Fund Gallery
Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba, which has sold 1,000 copies and is the 12th most popular jewelry book on Amazon.com, documents a disappearing artistic and cultural tradition with over three hundred photographs showing individual pieces, rare images of women wearing their jewelry with traditional dress, and the various regions in Yemen where the author did her field research. Marjorie Ransom’s
descriptions of the people she met and befriended, and her exploration of the significance of a woman’s handmade jewelry with its attributes of power, protection, beauty, and personal identity, will appeal to ethnic
jewelry fans, ethnographers, jewelry designers, and art historians. Amulet cases, hair ornaments, bridal headdresses, earrings, necklaces, ankle and wrist bracelets are all beautifully photographed in intricate detail, interspersed with the author’s own photographs of the women who shared their stories and their hospitality with her.
This is the first in-depth study of Yemeni silver, uniquely illustrated with photographs of a world that is transforming before our eyes, and animated with the portraits of a precious legacy.
Marjorie Ransom lived twice in Yemen, in 1966 and 1975, as a US diplomat in a thirty-year career that took her also to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Egypt. She and David Ransom, her late husband, were the first Arabic-speaking tandem couple in the Foreign Service. With the help of American Institute for Yemeni Studies research grants, Ransom later spent a year in Yemen in 2005 studying jewelry and costumes. Her findings are featured in the stunning illustrated book Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba: Yemeni Regional Jewelry. She is currently working on a second volume solely about silversmiths. Ransom has lectured extensively in the US about traditional jewelry of the Middle East and exhibited her private collection of silver jewelry in various museums including the Bead Museum in Washington. She has also published numerous articles on Yemeni wedding jewelry, the craft of Yemeni silver, and the future of this threatened craft.
