Hand Made Sterling Silver African Map

Made in South Africa.

This unique and beautiful necklace was made in South Africa by a jeweler that has managed to combine traditional African with a modern medium. The traditional San or Bushman cave paintings have been used to enhance the sterling silver African map pendant. The giraffe and hunters are cut out by hand.

About the Giraffe.

Early written records described the giraffe as "magnificent in appearance, bizarre in form, unique in gait, colossal in height and inoffensive in character." Ancient cultures in Africa revered the giraffe, as some modern cultures do today, and commonly depicted it in prehistoric rock and cave paintings. Unknown outside of Africa, this animal so excited man's curiosity that it was sometimes sent as a diplomatic gift to other countries; one of the earliest records tells of a giraffe going from Kenya to China in 1415. The animal was thought to be a cross between a camel and a leopard, a mistake immortalized in the giraffe's scientific name of Giraffa camelopardalis.

The giraffe is the tallest living animal, uniquely adapted to reach vegetation inaccessible to other herbivores. Giraffes have a distinctive walking gait, moving both right legs forward, then both left. At a gallop, however, the giraffe simultaneously swings the hind legs ahead of and outside the front legs, reaching speeds of 35 miles an hour. It has unusually elastic blood vessels with a series of valves that help offset the sudden buildup of blood (and to prevent fainting) when the head is raised, lowered or swung quickly. Giraffe "horns" are actually knobs covered with skin and hair above the eyes that protect the head from injury.

About the Bushmen.

When 4000 years ago nomads came into contact with the much longer established hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa, they called them San meaning food gatherers. In the 17th century the Dutch colonized the Cape of Good Hope and called the hunter-gatherers of the plains “Boschjemannen” which translates to Bushmen. Bushmen are the longest surviving tribe of Southern Africa they are descendents of the Stone Age people.

About the African Continent

Africa is the second largest continent, occupying about a fifth of the Earths land area. A huge and diverse continent with more than 50 independent countries, Africa contains vast natural resources.

Africa is the second largest continent, after Asia, bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and on the south by the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The continent’s total land area is approximately 30,365,000 square km. Africa is cut almost equally in two by the Equator, with the greater part of its territory north of the Equator.

The African continent contains a great natural diversity, from the Sahara desert in Northern Africa to the tropical rain forests in Central Africa; from the arid Sahel belt to the lush islands of the Indian Ocean. African states vary greatly in size; from tiny countries such as the Seychelles and São Tomé and Principe, to the vast states of Sudan and Algeria, and the populous federations of Nigeria and Ethiopia.