The story and legend of pearls turned out to be like this!

Ever since pearl jewelry were discovered by humans hiding in clam shells, their beauty has been admired for thousands of years. Its unique noble, elegant, gentle and delicate temperament image makes it a beloved treasure of the world, especially women. The stories and legends of pearls have become the object of human exploration.

Pearl Story

The story and legend of pearls turned out to be like this!

In ancient Rome in the first century BC, only kings and upper-class nobles could wear pearls. Lower-class civilians or slaves were not allowed to own pearls, and would be sentenced. Legend has it that in order to please Cleopatra VII, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and Mark Antony shipped large quantities of pearls from the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Mannar. The ancient Roman encyclopedic writer Pliny the Elder recorded such a story in his writings.

Pearl Stories and Legends

Cleopatra originally had a pair of very large pearl earrings. The price of two pearls was so high that it was said that they could feed the entire country of Egypt for a century (this is somewhat exaggerated). Once she made a bet with her then lover Anthony, treating him to a unique and luxurious feast. But after the two of them tasted the delicacies, Antony felt that the feast was no different from other royal feasts and thought that the queen had lost.

Pearl Story

After hearing this, Cleopatra smiled slightly and asked the waiter to bring a wine glass filled with vinegar. She took off the huge pearl earrings on her ears, picked up one of them and threw it into the glass as a pearl. After it dissolved in vinegar, the Queen picked up the wine glass and drank it all in one gulp. When she picked up the remaining pearl and prepared to dissolve it in another glass of vinegar for Antony, she was immediately stopped by the dumbfounded Antony, who admitted that Cleopatra had won the bet this time. The remaining big pearl was later owned by Caesar after Cleopatra's death and placed in the ear of Venus, the goddess of love, in the Pantheon in ancient Rome. Because there was only one, so The large pearl was cut in two and became the earrings on the sculpture of Cupid.

Pearl Stories and Legends

In the summer of 1275, the later famous traveler Marco Polo, an Italian who was only 21 years old at the time, after traveling through Eastern Europe under the leadership of his father and uncle, arrived in Dadu under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty and met with the then Kublai Khan, Emperor of China. During a palace banquet, Marco Polo saw a huge pearl worn by the emperor. Legend has it that this pearl was a royal treasure plundered by Genghis Khan, the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, when he invaded and expanded the territory of the Mongolian Empire and reached the Khwarizm Kingdom on the Adriatic Sea, the Abbasid Dynasty and some Central Asian countries. . Seventeen years later, Marco Polo, his father and uncle decided to bid farewell to Kublai Khan. After many attempts to persuade him to stay, they finally set out on their way home. Taking with them countless rare treasures given by the emperor, they became famous in Venice overnight. Among them were the huge pearls he saw, which also paved the way for the story and legend of pearls.