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Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba: A Virtual Book Talk
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This book is the first illustrated study of ethnic silver jewelry in Yemen, by an expert researcher and collector and it 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.
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.
You can purchase your copy of the book from major booksellers and online book retailers worldwide, or through these links:
EG: http://tinyurl.com/SilverYemenEG
North America: http://tinyurl.com/SilverYemenNA
UK: http://tinyurl.com/SilverYemenUK
You can send your questions via email to auc.press@aucegypt.edu, in advance to be asked during the Q&A session at the end of the event.
Speakers
Marjorie Ransom
With the help of research grants from the American Institute for Yemeni Studies, Marjorie Ransom studied jewelry and costumes in Yemen in 2005-9 and wrote this book on her findings, Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba: Yemeni Regional Jewelry; she is writing a second volume on Yemeni silversmiths.
During diplomatic careers that took Ms. Ransom and her late husband to several Arab countries, they collected more than 1800 pieces of Middle Eastern silver jewelry.
An exhibit from her their collection, Silver Speaks: Traditional Jewelry of the Middle East, appeared at the Bead Museum in Washington, DC in 2002-3, as well as three other locations in New York and Michigan from 2005-7. Several pages from her book, as well as videos and other biographical information, can be viewed at www.ransomsilverspeaks.com.
In 2023, Ms. Ransom donated the jewelry pieces that appear in her book to the Indiana University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Bloomington; the Museum will mount an exhibit from the donated items in 2025.
Ms. Ransom has three daughters and six grandchildren and lives in Washington, DC.
Nashwa Alsharki
Nashwa Alsharki is from Yemen and currently lives in New York City. She has a deep appreciation for the traditional jewelry of Yemen and has been particularly impressed by Marjorie Ransom's work on this subject. Having deeply connected with Marjorie's work, Nashwa has been involved with the Yemeni community in New York organizing events around Yemeni jewelry and craftsmanship to connect Yemenis to this precious but underappreciated cultural heritage.