One more close-up. I had to brighten the shadows quite a bit to get the holes more 'legible'. It's neat to see the ends, where the small bits of black glass are laid down to form the braid pattern.

The second picture shows why it took me so long to get these pics.

I had to remove about 5 layers of beads and tools until I got to the very bottom of the pile. Of course, that strand of beads was at the very bottom. But right where I'd left them.

I like to consider my workspace an archeological dig. Some detractors might say 'midden heap'. Whatever. It works for me, and seems to fascinate visitors.

small black Hebron beads, weathered and traumatized? They have a furnace-wound look to them, ruling out the usual African powder glass techniques. We can probably rule out the usual European suspects. The group they're in with and the stringing tell us nothing. The squarish cross section also hints at Hebron. Don't read too much into the "braided" appearance.

Otherwise, just some one-off strays from some low-tech industry. Not very pretty either and not enough of them to make an interesting bracelet or some such.

What I think is 2 or 3 strings of molten glass were twisted together. The twisted lengths were wound around a mandrel then cut into sections. The glass was thick enough to retain the shape of each 'string'.