Such a lot of beautiful tiny beads. Thanks, everyone, for showing them.

When I first replied to Ali's post, I was thinking, "I don't have any beads as small as that." But then today, I was looking for something else and found these. The first is a strand I've shown here before - unusual Jatims with graduated red glass "mutisalah" Indo-Pacific drawn beads. The smallest mutisalah are just about 1 mm in both directions. What's interesting is that all of the beads in the photo were found together in a single jar - in northern Java. I saw them while they were still embedded in the dirt. They date from about the 5th or 6th century CE.

The other photo is of micro lapis beds (1mm hole to hole, about 2 mm diameter) that I strung with a carnelian poppy sead-pod amulet from the New Kingdom, 15th century BCE or thereabouts. The blue and red were a common colour combination in that period - along with lots of gold, of course.

Cheers,

Will