A love affair that had an unpromising start -- as often happens.
One of my still traveling friends, brought to Barcelona (circa 1998)a strand of Mizoran carnelians, along with heavy bags of antique Indian silver and the like. I didn't give them a second look, they were way too "civilized" and "European style" for my taste then -- narrowly focused on primitive and tribal ornaments.
Of course, no taste is good taste, but I did not know it yet.

Time passed by and one day I purchased a book, "L'Or des Amazones", published by Editions Findakly, in fact the Catalogue of an important show that happened at Cernuschi Museum, in Paris, from March 16th to July 15th, 2001.
There, on page 164, a simple, but oh-so-nice necklace was pictured (see first pic); the caption read:
*169
TORQUE
Or. D. :15
I-II century before J.C.
Alitoub. Aksaļ Ditrict. Rostov.
Kurgan 3 ("Krestovyi"), grave 20
Excavated by V.P.Chilov, 1962
Rostov Museum, Inv. KP 2447/70

Now, these carnelian beads looked so much like our 20 centuries younger Mizorans...specially the ones my french friend had brought a couple of years before.
Of course, nothing is more common than miracles, and as you may already know, there is no order of hierarchy in miracles.So, not only I had that strand somewhere in my workshop, but also a boxful of Indian rock crystal melon beads very much the same as the torque's two center beads.
That is to say that soon after,a decent rendering of that ancient museum piece was on top of my desk.(See the second pic).

Enough for today.