Did you know that jewellery predates clothes? The oldest known piece is a set of 100, 000-year-old beads, made from Nassarius shells. Liza Urla advises us not to look at the eyes when meeting a new person, but instead to look at their jewellery. She describes it as the ultimate means of self-expression, essential to our identification as humans. "Jewellery is our armour," she says, "and precious stones our amulets". In this book, she journeys from continent to continent, chronicling the pieces that capture