| Original Message: Re: Shiraz Face Beads |
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Hi Ali, It's very good to hear from you. I just got back to Canada from Southeast Asia a short while ago and I've been trying to catch up with several months of the forum - so many interesting posts from around the world, but none more interesting than this additional information that you're giving us here. Personally, I didn't - and don't - doubt the age and authenticity of some of these face beads that have been found around Shiraz, but the different colour combinations present a new and wider picture. Whether they were made in Shiraz is another question, however, and one that's much more difficult to answer. I think pretty much all the beads you show could have been manufactured in West Asia (Lebanon, Syria, Egypt) and traded east towards centres of wealth in Persia, Afghanistan and India - perhaps even as far as the coast of what is now Thailand. But there's a real probability to my mind that the technology spread also, and that new centres of production grew up along the trade routes. The only real proof of that would be archaeological, but if the archaeologists aren't interested, we're not going to get any help from that source - more's the pity. The only other evidence would be if quantities of beads were found in the new site that either in style or technique were not found anywhere else in the world. That's what happened with Jatim beads from East Java - many of them resemble West Asian beads but they are made quite differently. If something similar were discovered in Shiraz, then we would have the crucial proof we needed. All the best, Will All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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