Pictured, your bead (2 views, center blurry beads) is a copy of the bead pictured in the 2 outside shots....I emailed you variations of the same types in many color varieties, unfortunately my schedule doesn't allow me to hunt for the exact bead you show......as far as a face design, I think that is dirt but it is too difficult to tell as your pictures are all out of focus, nice find though!
Here is a quick compilation from pictures I already have of some of my beads showing the correlation of ancient to Kiffa, plus a few similar to yours. When I find the exact bead as yours, I will show it
Thank you so much! I knew you were the one to ask!the marks on the yellow eyes is not dirt! I checked very carefully!
A good and clear photo of the area that you believe to be faces would be nice, if they are actually faces then you would certainly have an extremely rare bead, I have personally examined over 10,000 Kiffa beads and have never seen one with an intentional face.....seriously awaiting a good photograph that can show what you think you see!!!
Hey Thomas! I did not say that the marks were faces! I said they appear to be a crude attempt to make them look like faces and, I also said that it certainly is Not dirt placed to appear to be faces. I looked at them with a magnifying glass and it is just colored marks that resemble faces only when looked at with the naked eye! My husband does all of my pictures and he does his best but, he is not a professional nor very interested in it! Even, if they are not real faces, I sure love this bead!
The photo TASART posted - copied from his post and reused by me to support my argument - belongs to the same family of so-called "EARLY ISLAMIC BEADS" than yours, Adjichristine!
Though Mauritanian beadmakers copied many "Islamic" designs, this was not the case with your bead.
Another thing is noteworthy, though. Have another look at the two photos Adjichristine had posted. It is a weird bead indeed and though the quality and sharpness of both photos make is somewhat tricky to issue an ultimate statement, I believe I figured out, what's WRONG (!) with AC's bead.
Again - I have not a shred of a doubt the bead is "Islamic", not Mauritanian powderglass. The cane visible when looking inside the aperture is proof of that. It were not only technically impossible, but also completely sense-, and useless for "Kiffa Beadmakers" to copy, to "paint" (with glass) a cane into the beadhole.
But what about the white stripes at the top of the bead? They should be part of a black'n'white composite cane, were the bead an authentic "Islamic" specimen.
Yet this white stripes appear to be faked. They appear to be painted (with color - not glass) onto the bead, obviously to make it look more authentic, or, what I believe more, to turn it into a "Muraqat".
We can only speculate about the motives of the person who did that, but the fact remains:
- The bead came into existance as an Islamic product, something being made 1000-1300 years ago in MIddle East, possibly Syria. It's whole appearance, the general lack of various kiffa-typical features and the cane visible in the beadhole confirm my assumption.
- The white stripes do not belong to a cane (leave alone this beadtype usually shows black and white stripes, as TASART's specimen (and many others of this type) proofs.
- These white stripes appear to be "painted" onto the surface of the bead. I would bet not with glass, not through a prefabed cane, but some sort of oil-color. Not an unusual observation on "Kiffas" coming out of Mauritania.
We have here and Islamic Bead with white stripes that do not belong here. The bead, I assume, has been found in either Mauritania, Mali or the Senegal - the latter two states being close to Mauritania, where "Muraqat" originate from.
The bead - as far as the photos to allow me this statement - is a hybrid. The bead is an authentic "Islamic" specimen with white stripes added to give it more credibility. Either as "Islamic bead" or as "Muraqat" aka "Kiffa Bead.
I had to be proven wrong with hard facts to believe otherwise.
