Another possibility
Re: Need ID Help Please! Ancient? Blue & White Mali Dug Beads -- AnneLFG Post Reply Edit Forum Where am I?
Posted by: Beadman Post Reply
11/17/2019, 23:14:57

It has been suggested that, possibly, your beads may not be Mali burial beads at all.

This is a proposition I had not considered.

Among beadmakers (or more-properly bead-alterers) in Ghana, there are some techniques they exploit to make new beads from old beads.

Among other things, they will take two or three drawn beads, stack them one-atop the other, heat them until they fuse, and then twist the resulting bead to make the stripes spiral. I have specimens where this was done with old rosetta beads.

Let us say the person began with a striped "Dutch cane bead." (These may or may not be Dutch, and could easily be Venetian.) They typically have three layers—these being blue-white-blue, with external white stripes. It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that someone could take one of these beads (or two stacked together, if necessary), heat it/them, pull the glass so that it becomes an elongated mass, and then make a wound bead—as described previously.

I suppose this is an idea to be considered. Jamey



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