Hi Shinji,
It certainly is a beautiful bead. But these colors of brown and orange seem unusual to me.
What are the clues which have led you to believe that this rolled pad bead is ancient?
Is the aperture even or different in size from one side of the opening to the other?
I mean, is the hole tapered?
Frederick
Hi Fred
Mosaic,Color,Wear...everything is saying "I'm an ancient bead." to me.
There's no doubt and there's no options for me in this point.
Red is not orange in fact,
I agree it's a little bit different from ancient Indian red(brown red).
But I think it's cupper red also including some other materials to make red.
The part of mosaic(surface) looks like rolled-pad,
But I'm not sure that the bead itself was made by "rolled-pad" method and I wonder if the mosaic plate may be rolled and fused on pre-made big semi translucent bead....???
The size of hole is almost same from an end to another end.
Shinji