People have always had a fascination with pearls. Early in our history, pearls were treasured and regarded as symbols of wealth and power.
Pearl History
Ancient civilizations were mystified as to where pearls came from. In China, it was believed that the pearl formed in the brain of a dragon. Ancient Greeks favored the idea that pearls were formed by lightning striking the ocean. The spherical shape of some pearls led many cultures to associate this gem with the moon. In Europe, they symbolized modesty, chastity, and purity.
According to some historians, humans collected pearls because they believed that the gems provided the wearer with mythical powers: health, vitality, eternal youth, and marital bliss, amoung others. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim faithful covered the walls of their churches, temples, and shrines with pearls.
Hindu and Arab cultures - some of history's greatest admirers of the pearl - thought pearls were drops of moisture that fell from the heavens. Ancient Hindus imagined pearls as dewdrops that fell at night and collected in open oyster shells, while some Middle Easterners believed molluscs would float to the surface of the sea, open up to absorb the sunlight, and catch the holy teardrops. The warm rays of light and salty tears would combine to grow a beautiful pearl when the oyster descended to the ocean floor.
People now know that pearls don't actually fall from the sky. But even with modern knowledge about how pearls form, they're still considered something of a miracle. Most pearls are now cultured - the result of human intervention in the natural process.
One Expensive Glass of Wine
One of the oldest and most enduring pearl legends involves the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, who ruled from 51 to 30 BCE. She often threw lavish dinner parties to impress her guests, including Marc Antony, the Roman general who was her lover.
During one such feast, Cleopatra bet Antony that she could devour the wealth of an entire country in one meal. Although Antony knew Cleopatra liked to indulge herself, he sensed an easy victory and accepted the wager.
The meal she served was wonderfully extravagant, but it did not seem to Antony as though she had spent the equivalent of a country's wealth. As the meal ended, Antony was confident that he had won the bet. But his confidence was premature, and he sat stunned as Cleopatra snatched victory away from him.
Clever Cleopatra won the wager with the help of a pearl. According to legend, the Egyptian queen broke one large beautiful pearl from an earring she was wearing. Then she crushed it and stirred the pearly powder in a glass of wine. She drank the wine along with its valuable contents.
Pliny, a Roman historian who lived in the first century AD, estimated the now mythical pearl's value to be easily equivalent to a country's wealth: one million ounces of silver. Today, that amount would be roughly equal to $5.5 million.
