Sure - I will introduce myself! I am impressed by this place!

Ok, my name is Johanna and I run a small strange business importing frankincense and myrrh from Southern Arabia where I used to live into Australia. My real passion is vegetable and mineral dyed textiles from the Middle East and North and West Africa, but along the way I've run into quite a few beads....
My ex is from Senegal and I've spent quite a bit of time there, and been to Mali and Nigeria in my hunt for certain sorts of textiles and the people that still make them. I've also lived in Turkey.
I don't know a great deal about beads but I know a lot about some of the countries they come from. I find all of this utterly fascinating because it's like a living museum.
At present I am selling beads on consignment for a man who brings them in, new and ancient, from Iran and West Africa, and so to sell them properly and for my own interest I need to learn about them. Actually, I can see already it's going to be more for my own interest, as this ties up into my already very firm obsessions with textiles and old perfumes and glassware and frankincense from these regions....
For the use of this board if it's any help I can read Arabic script.

And my favourite bead is a very boring fake agate (this one IS fake, I know) that i bought from a Mauritanian man in St Louis in Senegal. Ity's my favourite becaue the exchange we had was so funny, first he thought I said I was Austrian ("so you speak German"), then Arabian ("So you speak Arabic"), then finally he got that I was Australian....("So your government is digging up my country for minerals".....me "YES! Bingo, that's the one!!!")

Lovely to meet you all!