Primitive and Folk Jewelry by by Martin Gerlach

This book has over 1,900 illustrations of primitive and folk jewelry from around the globe and the pieces come from many of the world's most prized museum collections. It has examples of jewelry from Malta, Spain, Germany, Bohemia, Bulgaria, Russia, Norway, Austria, Africa, and Ceylon. If you are interested in the history of early jewelry and other cultures this book is great. It's makes a very nice addition to the library of anyone who collects ethnic or ancient jewelry and it can be purchased very inexpensively in the used book market.

Quote from the introduction: "It is characteristic of all primitive and older articles of jewelry that they have no individual self-sufficient significance, that they are not worn arbitrarily according to individual taste and caprice, in any number and arrangement, as jewelry is used today, but that the individual types of jewelry count only as components of an established, developed and complicated ensemble, just as costumes everywhere originally formed a consistent whole which was dissolved only gradually with the passage of time".