It has been a while since there were new dialogues here. So I am posting a text I created for Facebook in 2021 (during Covid isolation).

The two attached photos are an historical necklace diagram from the 1930s; and a photo of five pumtek necklaces taken in about 1984.

BEADMAN - MY STUFF - 2021
Jamey D Allen
 
More about pumtek beads. How old are they?

I'm going to tell you what has transpired since 1983.
Originally, the popular belief was that pumtek beads were "ancient." I think a primary reason for this was because it was easy to compare them to Tibetan zi beads, and other chemically-decorated stone beads, that derived from as long ago as 2,500 BCE. However, I was skeptacle of this from the beginning. And my opinion was that just as we could not actually date various zi beads, we had no dependable way of judging the age or temporal range of pumtek beads.

In 1985 I met Lois Dubin, who asked me to collaborate with her in producing The History of Beads. I had three basic tasks, one of which was to help produce The Bead Chart (the timeline of bead history). I traveled to Denver where Lois was then living, and we had many additional exchanges.

One day Lois said, "Where are we going to place the pumtek beads? People seem to think they are ancient." I told her that I did not believe that was true, though there was no information, yea or nay, to indicate anything. (Remember, we had only become aware of pumtek beads two years previously.) I said, "My gut tells me they cannot be older than, say, 300 years, and they might be newer." So she said, "Where are we going to put them?" And I said, "Place them in the 17th century." And that's where they went.

If you consult the 1987 edition of THoB you will see that was the situation then. (More to come. It's a L O N G story....)

Joyce Holloway, Anne Heck and 37 others
17 comments

Jamey D Allen
In 1988 another curious thing happened—which was that a lady in Southern California who was an antiques seller, received a huge collection of ancient beads from Burma. Burma had been a closed country for decades, and very few people involved in beads had any tangible and practical experience with Burmese beads. So this was a big deal! This group of beads was being made into sellable jewelry (necklaces) by my friend Judith Ubick, of The Bead Society in Los Angeles. She convinced the owner to donate a selection of beads to The Bead Museum in Arizona--and I was chosen to come to L.A., see the collection, and make the donation selection. Gabrielle Liese (TBM Founder) paid my way to do that. It was an exciting afternoon, and I sorted beads and took LOTS of photos, and made a modest selection. I also composed a short piece for the SBR Forum (***), and discussed them in lectures I devised. One of the most-intriguing things I noted was that there was a whole class of decorated stone beads, that looked very much like pumtek beads (and to some degree like some zi beads), though they were very small in size, and seemed to be made of at least three different materials. Could this be evidence for the antiquity of pumtek beads? (*** Thinking about this, I think the short piece I wrote was for The Bead Museum Quarterly.)

In 1989 I was told that the owner had had enough necklaces made, and that she would allow me to buy some beads if I were interested. At that time, The Bead Society was having a bead seminar, and I was invited to speak and teach a class. My friend Walt Seifried was also attending—and I told him about the Burmese bead offer. We went together to Judith's home and struck a deal. I made a selection of beads to buy. We agreed to pay $100. for them, and Walt paid it. Then we took the beads back to the hotel (where the seminar was held), and we took turns dividing the pile into two equal parcels, bead-by-bead. I still have mine—and, as with pumtek beads, I can claim I was the first American bead researcher to see, document, and study these Burmese beads. (I'll post a link about this at the end of this essay.)

A year later, we were told that the owner had had her fill of the Burmese beads, and was ready to sell the remaining specimens. I told Walt, and we went to the owners home. Walt made a deal, and bought the remaining beads. About a year later, he managed to get into Burma, made contact with a collector there, and bought a HUGE collection of ancient beads. By this time we had come to call the culture that owned, loved, and burried all these beads the "Pyu." So these were "Pyu beads." Upon his return from Asia, I flew to Walt's home in Ohio, and saw his new collection—and I spent hours shooting everything. He did the same thing another time, and I photographed those as well. By this time Pyu beads were being circulated in Thailand (where they were also locally available in antiquity, and recovered from Thai burials, as well as coming into Thailand from Burma). And, of course, they were regarded as being "ancient"—which they were—and this likewise affected the perceptions of pumtek beads as well.

In no time at all, the circumstances of Burmese beads caused pumtek beads to be regarded as "ancient." I worked tirelessly to counter this speculation, and to explain my involvement and the reasons for my doubts. But popular ideas spread faster than do skeptical ideas. A few people began to specialize in pumtek beads, and one composed a book about them (in 2000). So, it came to pass that pumtek beads are mistakenly said to be "Himalayan," and to be "ancient like zi beads."

By the year 2000 I had read two archaeological/ethnographic reports that concerned pumtek beads—and what I learned from them can be summarized briefly as this. In Burma, around 100 years ago (or somewhat earlier) tribal Burmese people were digging up beads (that would have been "Pyu beads"), and were avidly collecting them. It became quite a fad. It's possible they found a manufacturing site, and had potential-beads they could drill and use, also. But when the supply dwindled, someone decided to MAKE new similar beads. And someone discovered that fossil palmwood took the chemical treatments well. And thus pumtek beads were made—and then became the fad. I then began promoting the idea that pumtek beads were little more than 100 years old. But that we should expect any constructions of them to include older beads too. (Does this sound familiar?) Fast forward to about 2005 (+ or -). I was at a bead show in Oakland, CA, and was approached by a woman I did not know. (I later learned she and her husband had invested a great deal of money into pumtek beads—having bought them from a seller who was adamant they were ancient, and who charged astronomical prices for them.) Our conversation was interesting...
She said to me, "I understand that you think pumtek beads are only about 100 years old." I said "Yes, that's my opinion."** She said, "Well, you know there are some different ideas circulating." And I said, "For instance?" And she said, "It has been published that they date from the 17th century." (!!). I said, "Do you know where that idea came from?" She didn't seem to know—so I told her. I told her the story of how Lois Dubin and I, based on my gut feeling, decided to provisionally place pumtek beads at the 17th century, in order to avoid placing them in antiquity (way back in 1986). Stop for a second, and think about the irony of my actions in 1986 coming back as "proof" to discredit the ideas I was promoting in 2005—because no one knew that these ideas came from me in the first place.... (**Actually, what I told her was that my current opinion was based, not on my beliefs, but on the two articles I had read that were composed by researchers who had worked in Burma—which had refined my ideas.)

At another time, someone said to me, "I have seen photos of Burmese people wearing pumtek beads that are older than the 20th century." To which I respond, "You mean you can tell from a grainy old photo that the beads being worn are pumtek beads, and not the ancient beads that inspired pumtek beads? How can you tell that?”

This is the Net article I composed, about Burmese beads, for the BCN Forum. I'll have more to say on these topics later.
http://beadcollector.net/beadman2/index.html

BEADCOLLECTOR.NET
PYU PICTORIAL & ESSAY 1

Anne Heck
Thank You Jamey Allen for this excellent explanation of what lead to correctly dating Pumtek beads in the scheme of things. You may have mentioned this but since Pumtek are made from fossil opalized palm wood (palmoxylon),- that fact could have also contributed to people believing in a more ancient origin, just by association, even though that is not rational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmoxylon

Jamey D Allen
We can see that, at cyber auctions, sellers now routinely say "old agate," or "ancient agate.' Of course, the agate is millions of years old, even though the beads are new.... These are just tricky deceptions.

François C. Villaret
Shouldn't it be easy to date them, more precisely in time, thanks to formal archeological excavation - I mean for the oldest ones?
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Jamey D Allen
Of course, if normal strict archaeology is pursued in Burma, this should provide many answers. However, in a general way it is already understood that: 1) Indian agate beads were traded to Burma in antiquity; 2) during the Indianization of SE Asia and Island SE Asia, the Burmese were instructed in manufacturing beads in the Indian style—and "Pyu" beads (now called Tircul beads) most-likely would be a combination of imported Indian beads and local beads. And, of course, it would interesting if these could be distinguished from each other. It can also be assumed that the knowledge of coloring and chemically-decorating certain minerals did not entirely die-off, but that someone understood these skills, well enough to devise pumtek beads. But it is uncertain when that actually began and became an ongoing industry. It is possible that this was so recent in-time that normal archaeology might not find it (since this is, essentially, a modern practice). In conjunction with astute archaeology, there should be interviews with current beadmakers, to understand how and when these skills were developed and exploited, from their perspectives. And, of course, details of the actual technology that is used in making current pumtek beads. (Some of this has been revealed already.)

Jamey D Allen
I want to add that in 2014 I presented a lecture in San Francisco, on the topic of Tircul and pumtek beads, showing my extensive collections. In 2017 I used these images to further discuss pumtek beads here at Facebook. These photos and discussion can be found at my FB page. In 2021, at Beadman - My Stuff, I posted a long series of photos that traverse 1983 to about 2010—shedding light on the pumtek story. This is a link to the Folder in the Photos Archive: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/... You have to join the Group to get inside.