Treasure Hunt: 12+ Covetable Jewelry Pieces Inspired by Ancient Relics

Designers are turning ancient relics into contemporary, cool jewelry.

Published: November 7, 2025
Written by: Jill Newman

ancient relics bulgari earrings — Vintage Bulgari earrings (Courtesy of Bulgari)

Designer Silvia Furmanovich lights up when talking about her recent adventures and discoveries in Kyoto. While exploring the city’s antique quarter, she uncovered a magnificent set of 18th-century clam shells, each a miniature masterpiece painted with delicate scenes in gold leaf and pigment. They were kaiawase shells, she explains, pieces used in a Japanese memory game from the Edo period, in which players matched the images on the shells, the perfect jumping off point for jewelry inspired by ancient relics.

Meet the Experts

Jewelry designer Silvia Furmanovich launched her brand 20 years ago in São Paolo.

Sylva Yepremian is the owner of Sylva & Cie, a Los Angeles-based jewelry company.

Marc Auclert always collected antiques and worked for De Beers and Chanel, before establishing his own Maison Aucler.

Loren Nicole is an archeologist-turned-jewelry designer based in Southern California.

Treasure Hunt: 12+ Covetable Jewelry Pieces Inspired by Ancient Relics

Antonia Miletto handmakes her pieces in her Venetian atelier using gold, wood, stone, and other natural materials.

Gurhan Orhan started GURHAN with his wife, Fiona. He is a visionary Turkish designer who pioneered the resurgence of 24-karat gold craftsmanship.

Back in her São Paulo atelier, she set the shells with diamonds, gemstones, and gold in earrings that preserved their artistry in playfully elegant designs. “I approach each antique object with deep respect for its history but also with a desire to reimagine it for today,” says Furmanovich, who has traveled the world, often with her son Andrey, in search of historic artifacts and age-old crafts.

From the Silk Road to remote parts of Egypt, she has returned with treasures: decorative Asian snuff bottles, intricate Italian micro mosaics, Rudraksha beads from India, and masterfully carved Japanese netsuke carvings. She is among a growing number of designers seeking something deeper than conventional luxury – artists who want to spotlight ancient skills and cultures in their jewelry, creating pieces that tell stories.

Ancient Relics with Stories:
Jewelry That Revives the Past

antique inspired jewelry — Gurhan Antiquities Gold Carnelian Intaglio Center Stone Cocktail Ring, Carved Carnelian Intaglio Depicting a Heron (Courtesy of Gurhan)

Designers are creatively combining ancient relics with diamonds, bringing them to life with sparkle, light, and enhancing their preciousness. It’s a perfect pairing: modern, radiant diamonds deliver a sense of glamour and novelty, while older cut stones with a softer twinkle evoke a sense of mystery, like found treasure.

“At first, clients are drawn to the jewelry for its aesthetic,” says Sylva Yepremian, owner of Sylva & Cie, a Los Angeles-based jewelry company, who loves to share the relic’s history with her clients. “When they hear about its history, it becomes an emotional connection.”

“It’s not about simply resetting old artifacts; it’s reimagining them in modern ways,” says French jeweler Marc Auclert, whose grandfather was an antiques dealer. “I’m not looking for a vintage feel but for a radical expression with a tension between the storytelling of the antique and the modern mounting,” he says.

ancient relics jewelry — (Courtesy of Auclert)

From a young age, Auclert collected antiques, even working at the Paris flea markets before moving into jewelry, where he worked for De Beers and Chanel, before establishing his own Maison Auclert. He sources ancient relics such as intaglios, cameos, and coins from the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, along with Egyptian and pre-Columbian artifacts. His unconventional settings include a first-century BCE gold Celtic coin surrounded by diamonds in a bold ring that underscores the contrast between the warm, patinaed yellow gold coin and the high-sparkle stones.

The Hunt for Ancient Relics: Discovering Historic Artifacts for Modern Jewelry

Every designer will tell you the best part of scavenging for artifacts is the hunt. Whether exploring faraway cultures, meeting quirky antique dealers, or rummaging flea markets, they are seeking not just ancient relics but also uncovering ancient artistry and learning new ways to express themselves. On a visit to an antiques dealer in London earlier this year, for instance, Yepremian found a box of antique seals and intaglios that someone had collected over a lifetime. “I fell in love with them, bought the whole lot, and began transforming them one by one.”

She set the ancient relics on chunky oxidized gold chains, with antique diamonds, Tahitian pearls, and patinaed gold beads. But not all the artifacts are for sale; she couldn’t resist keeping some for her personal jewelry collection.

“I’m taking age-old material and infusing it with an edge – making it more whimsical, more rock ‘n’ roll with oxidized metal and other elements,” she says. “I’m taking the preciousness out and making it wearable for every day.”

ancient relics necklace — (Courtesy of Glenn Spiro)

Another jeweler captivated by ancient relics is Glenn Spiro, whose latest “Materials of the World” collection features 17th-century Baoulé gold artifacts. These finely etched, hand-worked gold tiles, made by the Baoulé African tribespeople, have survived for hundreds of years to land in his lavish designs. The London-based jeweler combines them with antique diamonds and other stones, such as ancient amber beads, in large-scale pendants that convey a dramatic effect. He celebrates the boldness of the tribal designs but in a strikingly contemporary way.

Archaeologist-turned-jeweler Loren Nicole sources artifacts largely from European antiquities dealers, like the roaring Lion Pendant from ancient Greece. “I was drawn to the lion for the sculptural quality and the fierce roar,” says Nicole, who is based in Southern California. Rather than embellish the lion, she created a simple 22-karat gold frame with four diamonds that “celebrates the antique form but gives it a new life and purpose.”

Another empowering piece is an ancient Persian bronze arrowhead, which she placed on a handwoven gold chain with champagne diamond accents. No doubt, the bronze arrowhead is a conversation starter. It’s clearly an old relic with gravitas, but on a slinky gold chain, it looks stylish and chic with everything from a white blouse to jeans and a t-shirt.

While jewelers such as Elizabeth Locke, Gurhan, and Coomi are known for featuring intaglios and micro mosaics in their designs, the concept is gaining popularity and evolving. New interpretations are bolder, higher-contrast, and more playful.

A great example is Antonia Miletto’s recently completed necklace with four large cameos from different eras, each depicting a female portrait, set in ebony frames with diamond accents. “I like to imagine them engaged in a gentle conversation across time,” says the Venice-based designer.

Rather than focus on the classical design motif, she chose to add a sense of playfulness. “I love changing their scale, adding some sparkle and setting them in my favorite woods – reimagining these old pieces in new form,” says Miletto.

ancient relics earrings cameo — Cameo earrings with diamonds (Courtesy of Antonia Miletto)

Turkish jeweler Gurhan Orhan and his wife, Fiona, have traveled the world collecting carved intaglios, lava cameos, coins, scarabs, guilloché enamels, reliquary pieces, and bronze artifacts from private collectors, hidden markets, and museum-like stalls for his ancient relics jewelry designs.

“Each artifact is set into a piece that feels both soulful and striking—made to empower the woman who wears it,” Orhan says.

As more people seek authenticity, something lasting, and jewelry with meaning, these ancient relics become those precious talismans. They’re a link to the past that has endured for centuries and been remade for a new generation.