granulation,  in jewelry, type of decoration in which minute grains or tiny balls of gold are applied to a surface in geometric or linear patterns or massed to fill in parts of a decoration. First used as early as the 3rd millennium bc, it was known in western Asia and Egypt. The technique as practiced by the ancient Greeks, especially immediately following the Mycenaean Age, achieved an amazing fineness and could produce a texture of great richness.In the mid-20th Century, the man who would become JAI’s founder, Robert Kulicke, set about restoring many of the lost arts of classical jewelry design. Kulicke rediscovered the ancient technique - now familiar to many - of granulating high-karat gold.  He also reconstructed and revitalized almost forgotten methods of Byzantine enameling.  To share his extensive knowledge of classical techniques with students, he and his partner Jean Stark founded the Kulicke-Stark Academy, later to become the Jewelry Arts Institute.