
Local masters used to make jewellery from metal and amber already since 1 000 BCE. They used to use local amber and imported metals — brass and bronze.
Simpler amber artefacts found on the Lithuanian seaside date back to even earlier days. These include various amber pendants with a hole, tubular and other types of beads, different buttons with a V-shaped hole, ornate discs, necklace separators and links with large holes, as well as human and animal figures. The surface of the jewellery is often decorated with dots and stripes, dividing the items into segments. Later people grew fond of amber necklaces, brooches, bracelets, pins and other items.
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Bronze was especially handy for making jewellery. Iron didn’t look as good, while silver was expensive. Gold used to be very rare and our ancestors didn’t make gold jewellery. Brass for jewellery and other items used to be imported from the nearest mines in Carpathian Mountains and the Alps.
Ancient Baltic jewellers knew how to weave bracelets, necklaces and rings of silver and bronze wires, engrave or hammer various ornaments, use enamel and glass décor, as well as attach silver, tin or zinc leaves. Bronze and silver (sometimes gold) was used for all kinds of jewellery (neck and arm rings, fibulae, temple rings, rings, pins, pendants). These metals were also used to decorate weapons, pieces of warriors’ gear and horse bridle.
In 1495 the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander issued a privilege to establish the first goldsmith guild in Vilnius and approved its status according to the Western European example.