Once again you have demonstrated your extraordinary talent for making something simply beautiful into something both beautiful and elegant. Great design and execution on this great old bead.

Regarding your disclaimer, my actual catalog description suggested the piece was from "Mesopotamia, Sumeria, circa 4th to third millennium BC", meaning Mesopotamia is the land region (basically the Fertile Crescent), whereas Sumer or the Sumerian empire was the culture and general time period from which it came. Sumer is generally thought of as the "civilizing" force in the region, from very early on up to the advent of the Akkadian empire around 2200 BC.

I am no professor of history and there is probably a better explanation than that, but it is in the neighborhood.

Jan