Precious Adornments Exhibition

Ornaments play an important role in the lives of nomads in East Asia. Not only do they indicate status through the display of wealth, they can also serve practical functions. Livestock make up a large part of the wealth of these nomads. Everything else of value must be portable due to their ever-mobile lifestyle. Therefore, even normal every-day items, such as spoons and hygiene kits, are made of silver or other metals and may be intricately designed and inlaid with semi-precious stones. In times of distress, these stones may be pried off or the whole object may be sold or traded for food and other essentials.

‘Precious Adornments: Nomadic Ornaments from Tibet and the Ordos’ looks into the functions of ornaments among modern-day Tibetan nomads and nomads of the Ordos Desert region of North China about 2,500 years ago.

With pieces ranging from the 6th Century BCE to modern, the exhibition will illustrate the importance ornament in these two cultures, separated by vast time and distance. Photographs of modern-day Tibetan nomads will illustrate how some of the ornaments were presented on the body.