.

All the Phoenician head pendants I've seen are core-formed, not moulded - like the one I'll attach that is in the NY Metropolitan Museum, which also appears to be intended to represent an African.

But I've seen a few that are mould-formed that apparently come from early Roman times. A couple, as I remember, are illustrated in one of the volumes of Whitehouse's books on Roman Glass in the Corning Museum. They are monochrome purple glass, but yours is in better condition. If it's authentic, it's very nice indeed.

Cheers,

Will

PHOENICIAN small head pendant late Hellenistic peirod. molded Probably in egypt.

PHOENICIAN Small head pendant. Aegean region, possibly Rhodes and or Cyprus 3rd-2nd BC

... of the faces may be moulded. but other features are clearly added on subsequently. Very different from the Roman period pendant of Juergen's which is formed entirely in two moulds, front and back, that were then joined together.

You mean casted and the neck part is where the raw material poured in and then they open the two cast molds that was probably from some kind of clay. I have a few specements in dark blue, yellow and greenish colored one. Sorry no photos. It's easier to see what I describe in the yellow one under light. It looks like one homogenic peice.
All the best
Yankee

Thanks, Yankee, yes. These early-Roman-period solid moulded head pendants were cast within the two halves of a clay mould. They're interesting in part because they're a step towards the mould-formed bottles of the later Roman period (some of them Janus-headed), where the blown glass was shaped by two hollowed-out clay sections (detail attached).

I can't see mould lines on your Phoenician heads, but you're a better judge of that. I'd love to see photos of your yellow and green examples, because I've only ever seen them in dark purple glass. You have the most amazing collection.

Best,

Will

Dear Will,
Thanks for your reply.
"I can't see mold lines on your Phoenician heads, but you're a better judge of that" Well, with the yellow one they only used one mold - the front one, and then the added the hair and the loop that it missing and the eyes. The green one is rod formed pressed into a mold. For the Roman period pendants, Sorry don't have photos yet... no time. See attached the most but really most coveted mold/blown glass piece by Ennion, over a million $ in price. Right now. in the Tel Aviv museum.
All the best,
Yankee.

JANUS. femal double faced pendant. 4th-3rd century BC,Mediterranean region.& Egypto Roman. Amber Glass. BES

Dear Nishidha,
It´s a handsome Bes you have over there. It looks like a part of a cup or a handle. Is it glass...or alabaster like material..
Thank you for posting
All the best,
Yankee
Attached pic just for you because I cannot take out of my head your majestic series of rings that you lately posted. Egypt Ptolemaic glass BES ring.

Yes, it is glass

This is from my book Magical Ancient beads (the Ulrich Beck Collection, 1998)—showing three (3) glass head pendants from the Phoenician era. The central pendant represents a black African. (Possibly a youth.) It is flanked by two (2) similar molded head pendants, with yellow skin, that are beardless, and may be young males or females.

Mistaking a typical Roman Period molded head pendant for a Phoenician pendant is a rather amateur mistake—though clearly there are both negroid and molded constructions that were earlier. JDA.

An error of semantics!

I was only weeks into beads - 25 years ago - when I knew how Phoenician head-pendants looks like. And you should know too, that I know it - "mistake" of not!

I even know how an appealing coffee-table bead book should look like!

I have seen this type before in some books & catalogs, but am pretty sure it is not Phoenician era in time period, I believe it is what Yankee said, Roman era.

Also, I do understand your distress on beads that look great in the hand but terrible in a picture. It happens to me quite a bit. I have to remind myself that the image is usually enlarged significantly and therefore you see detail not otherwise seen. In fact I never undertake a description for a bead until I have studied an enlargement because I often find flaws that were not noticed earlier. One of the problems with an enlargement though is that a flaw often looks much worse than it actually is.

Here is an example of a Phoenician era head pendant (circa 500 BC), that looks much worse in a picture than in the hand.

through the years and make maintaining the archive worthwhile. Thank you everyone for the time to edit and post!

Molded, with added suspension ring - Bassem's, can be found on the home page slide show.