The History of Pearls

• The oldest surviving pearl necklace is nearly 2000 years old and was found in the sarcophagus of a Persian Princess.
  
  
• Since 3500 BC pearls were worn in civilised Middle East and Asian societies.
  
  
• In the early 18th century there was a decline in the demand for pearls because of the discovery of diamonds in Brazil.
  
  
• The late 18th century gave the pearl industry a much needed boost because of the good harvests from several established pearl sources and the discovery of new ones.
  
  
• Before the beginning of the 20th century, pearl hunting was the most common way of harvesting pearls. Therefor divers manually pulled the oysters from ocean floors and river bottoms and checked every one of them for pearls.
  
  
• In the early 20th century there was the new invention of Cultured Pearls. But these kind of pearls were not accepted immediately by the consumer and so it took several years for the industry until they were accepted.
  
  
• In the 1990s Japanese produced cultured pearls with the help of freshwater mussels in the region of Shanghai, China and in Fiji.