| Original Message: Re: Indo-Pacific close-ups |
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These two strands came from Cambodia, probably 300BCE to 500AD: 1. dark blue and teal-y blue (translucent); 2. brick (opaque) and dark blue (translucent). Somewhere, I have some chunks of raw blue and teal glass, which come from the shoreline at Klong Tom on the Andaman sea south of Krabi. Even a couple of millennia ago it would have been an important transshipment point across the isthmus to the Gulf of Thailand, thereby cutting out the dangerous sea journey down through the Strait of Malacca. Unfortunately there are no reliable archaeological dates for that site; if there were, it might help us to determine when these beads started to be made from imported Indian glass in SE Asia. It must have been by 500BCE, when production of the unique biconal Ban Chiang beads began (they're found nowhere else). I've also seen some large (about 10 kilo) ingots (is that the right word?) of similar blue glass that were said to be from Ban Chiang (though I doubted most of what that dealer said, and didn't buy them). Strangely, I've never seen any red or yellow glass, though the red is the commonest variety of all. Best regards, Will All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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