Thanks all.........SEE YA AT THE FORUM

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New information suggests that the carnelian was sourced from Yunnan. So, while this is a different region than I have suggested in the past, it is also well-within-keeping for the original ideas I have expressed since the 1980s.

As far as I know, no one has suggested India as a place of origin. It has been my suggestion, from the time we first saw these beads, that they are some of the few ancient ethnic stone beads that are NOT from India. And I also noted that the quality of the carnelian stone differs from typical Chinese carnelians. Most of my ideas are panning-out.

Jamey

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First of all, we can estimate that the time of pema raka beads goes back to the Ming Dynasty (based on the fact that the Chinese carved this carnelian for themselves—and they were most-likely the makers of pema raka beads. This would make them at least 300 years old, and possibly older.

The great exportation of Mediterranean red coral to Tibet (via India) is probably less than 200 years old as a commercial enterprise. (This is not to say that Med. coral was not exploited before this time. This is the time of the industry that still exists in Naples, and remains the primary source for the world's gem-quality red coral.)

Here's a given. Most people anywhere in the world like the color red, and seek to have red ornaments. For 5,000 years, and since then, carnelian has provided that need. This was true in Europe, W. and E. Asia, Central Asia, the Himalayas, India, and South America. (Another material was red or reddish mollusk shell—also used by North Americans. Red mollusk shell is a very coral-like material.)

When quantities of coral became available, these beads supplanted the use of carnelian, to some degree. Tibetans and American Indians, in particular, fell in love with red coral.

So far from being a "substitute for coral," red coral became a substitute for carnelian. Nevertheless, it is easy to suppose that pema raka beads remained popular among some Tibetans, for certain purposes. (It is said that they were used as "hair beads"—and I have no reason to doubt that. They were also incorporated into prayer bead strands—thinking of the oblate and melon-form pema raka beads.)

In today's market, pema raka beads command high prices. And they are even imitated in glass; and are reproduced from what seem to be the original mines in Yunnan.

JDA.

2. fact that pemaraka is ming - makes it something relatively new, we have corals in Tang dynasty statues inlays

3. corals always demanded higher price then red cornelian, in any market including today.

4. idea that something expensive (red corals) been used to replace something cheap (red cornnelian) is naive

Have nice day

"This is not to say that Med. coral was not exploited before this time. This is the time of the industry that still exists in Naples, and remains the primary source for the world's gem-quality red coral."

When you say, "We have very early cases...," and "we have corals...," for whom are you speaking?

I am discussing PRACTICAL circumstances. And my belief is that red Mediterranean coral became "a thing" in Tibet, among Tibetans, around the time that the present coral industry (at Naples) was established and began trading their coral beads around the world. And I suggest that the popularity OF THIS CORAL supplanted the popularity of carnelian beads as "the preferred red material" for Tibetan beads.

And I would say this is an idea that counters your idea that pema raka beads "...Wear by mostly poor Tibetan people who can't afford corrals. Use to cheap throwaway beads only 20years ago" [sic].

In fact, pema raka were considered collectible and were not "cheap" even thirty years ago. Not that they compete with coral in relation to the current pricing structures caused by Chinese interest in Tibetan material culture that has happened in recent years. But the value of pema raka beads has climbed at the same time that coral prices have sky-rocketed. Nevertheless, I do not claim to know what the current thinking may be of Tibetan people, among themselves. So I don't know, and I don't claim to know, what their opinion(s) of pema raka beads may be now.

But I do think that, in the bigger picture of history, what I say is more accurate than what you have expressed.

JDA.

PRACTICAL = my belief.. you have no evidence. you leave you belief home please...

what does it mean? anything you belief is practical bcs u belief in it? or why?

If you can't dazzle them with brilliants..Baffle them with B.S.

How complicated can a Peme Rika be ???????

Thanks to all for the help with these beads....
Odan..aka...dannoh....aka Cpt. Longline

He is completely wrong about the history of carnelian in Chinese adornment. There is a massive amount of archaeological evidence published in China and elsewhere to show that carnelian was a highly valued material long, long before the introduction of coral in any substantial quantity. You can see carnelian beads displayed in just about every museum in China, and throughout Southeast Asia also. It was introduced from Central Asia as early as the Shang dynasty (and probably before) and in the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE) it was of great importance in the composition of elaborate court necklaces - an indispensable accompaniment to jade, which has of course been the most treasured material of all in China from the earliest times.

I’ll attach a photo that comes from a Chinese archaeology journal; it’s not very clear I’m afraid, but it shows a trapezoidal carved jade panel with dangles of carnelian and shell beads. It comes from a royal tomb in what is now Shanxi province and dates to the 10th century BCE. Many excavated necklaces and bracelets were a lot more complex in design than this one but similar in the integration of carnelian beads with jade.The carnelians are tubular, oblate and bi-conical. It appears that darker red stone (pema raka-ish)was more highly valued than the orangey, more translucent variety. Many of the beads found from this period were made in Central or West Asia, but some appear to have been locally carved from imported stone, and by the mid-Zhou dynasty Chinese agate was being mined for carnelian production. There seems to have been much less interest in the production of blackened agate than there was in Southeast Asia somewhat later.

Jessica Rawson, who used to be Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, has a very good article about Chinese carnelian in Cahiers d’Extrème Orient, vol. 17 (2008). She describes seeing “heaps” of carnelian at exacavated Zhou burial sites, and makes an important point in her insistence on the way in which jade and carnelian were frequently combined in court jewellery, which tends to be forgotten by people like myself who collect early jades and make the mistake of seeing them in isolation.

This popularity of carnelian never really waned in China, though probably its easy availability might have made it less treasured in some periods than in others. Jamey is completely right in saying that pema raka beads are simply a continuing symptom of that fashion for red stone and that coral only came into the picture in a substantial way much later. Coral had the attraction of being exotic, but even in the Qing dynasty carnelian continued to be widely used at the Manchu court.

Best,

Will