Parure : Un Langage Universel

Considered to be a form of language, finery is considered to be the first art form and a marker of humanity, since only human beings adorn themselves. The history of finery began over 100,000 years ago in Africa. As homo sapiens gradually populated the Earth, body ornaments appeared everywhere.

The first materials were organic - above all shells and animal teeth, traces of which can be found all over the world. What's more, beyond cultural differences, universal features can be observed in all societies in terms of the shapes, motifs, arrangements and symbolic values of objects of adornment.

In this book, linguist and collector Marina Yaguello takes a linguistic approach to the subject of finery and its history. By studying objects from her own collection or selected from museums in all parts of the world from the Palaeolithic to the 21st century, she looks at the tension between diversity and uniqueness.

The study follows a thematic approach based around five chapters: the substance of ornaments establishes a classification of materials - organic materials, lithic materials, metals and artefacts -, the adorned body gives the different typologies of ornaments, and the last 3 chapters give their form, motifs and syntax.