Ath Yenni Silver Jewelry

The villages of Ath Yenni sit on a ridge in the Kabylie mountains below the Djurdjura, and they have made silver jewellery for centuries in a style that is immediately recognisable: flat silver plates and openwork set with red coral and filled with enamel in blue, green and yellow, worked into fibulae, diadems, bracelets and heavy necklaces whose forms carry meaning within Kabyle dress. The work is done in small family workshops that can be visited, and an annual jewellery festival brings the makers together. The same villages are known for their position, strung along the ridge with the Djurdjura wall rising to the south, and for a long tradition of schooling and emigration.

What you actually see

• Coral and enamel on silver - the blue, green and yellow of Kabyle work.
• Fibulae and diadems - the forms that belong to Kabyle dress.
• Family workshops - silversmiths working in the villages.
• The ridge below the Djurdjura - the setting of the villages.

When to go

May to October for the mountain roads; the jewellery festival falls in summer. Half a day. Workshops keep their own hours and calling ahead helps.

Honest expectations

Machine-made and imported imitations are widely sold as local work; buy from the workshops. Prices for genuine coral and silver are high and should be. Roads are narrow and winding. Winter snow closes some routes.

Nearby

Ait Hichem is east; the Djurdjura rises south.