SAMI SILVER . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
As a nomadic tribe the sami people never had the opportunity to produce jewelry by their selves. An exception was jewelry made of pewter. This metal is so easy to work with that the Sami could draw wire which they used to embroider skin and cloth.
The sami people always got their silver jewelry by trade from Southern Scandinavia or Russia.
Silver treasures were often hidden under stones or in small caves. Still today the Sami tell many stories about ancient family fortunes which have never been found.
What we call "Sami silver" today, is a modern expression for silver jewelry which was produced for the first time at Juhls Silverworkshop in Kautokeino in the middle of the 1960's.
In the beginning, modern sami silver jewelry only consisted of rings, maljer, silverballs and other accessories for the sami national dress, called kofte in Norwegian. Later new models were included, based on excavations of ancient bronze- and silver jewelry from the Middle Ages . Most of those jewelry was found beside sami sacrificial stones in Sweden.
In
addition to the sami silver, Tana Gull og Sølvsmie AS
produces jewelry with motives from ancient sami shaman drums,
rock carvings and copies of museum collections.
Tana Gull og Sølvsmie
AS
-
THE - place to buy Sami Silver
in Northern Norway.