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Jewellery
Jewellery is still a popular product of the Himachal silversmiths. And although the designs are still traditional, the ornaments are lighter and more practical. Modern innovations in the crafts include the making of intricately carved silver lamp stands, tea pots, wine or butter cups and metal sculpture. These follow indigenous shapes and are decorated with finely carved patterns, which in addition to the local flora and fauna, depict stories from the epics.
Fine jewellery is crafted out of silver and gold. The jewellers of the once-Rajput kingdoms of Kangra, Chamba, Mandi and Kullu were famous for their enamelling skills.
They mainly worked with silver and were partial to deep blue and green enamelling. They created exquisite pieces like elliptical anklets, solid iron-headed bangles, hair ornaments, peepal-leaf-shaped forehead ornaments, necklaces known as chandanhaars (a bunch of long silver chains linked by engraved or enamelled silver plaques) and pendants with motifs of the mother goddess.
An old Kangra pattern for silver anklets is a series of birds, archaic in design, connected by silver links. Unfortunately most of this is old jewellery and is no longer made. You could check it out in museums like the Kangra Art Museum in Dharamsala, the State Museum in Shimla and the Bhuri
Singh Museum in Chamba. So much so that every pahari woman dreams of owning one.
Chokers called kach (made of silver beads and triangular plaques) and the collar-like hansali are also common. Heavy anklets, bangles and silver bracelets (kare) - solid or filled with shellac - with clasps in the shape of crocodile or lions heads are worn by all women. In the Tibetan influenced Lahaul-Spiti, ornaments are studded with semi precious stones like coral, turquoise, amber and mother-of-pearl
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