The black beads are used on necklaces called skhab, and are made in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, and Senegal, from a traditional mix of spices like clove, rose, saffron, nutmeg, etc. with a binder material to hold everything together.

The scented necklaces are worn by women and considered to be an aphrodisiac, for men!

There is a 26-page booklet by Marie Jose Opper, "Scented Magic Beads in Africa", that has more information.

I got this in Leipzig at the flea market for 15 euros - a great deal! They appear infrequently online for sale.

Your necklace is unusual, I think, in that it has so much silver chain. Mine is a fairly conventional design with the hand of Fatima also of molded scented paste.

Post and think... not the perfect pattern - but hopefully the pictures are nice.
Thank you for the info and reference Rosanna.

Hi, that’s a beautiful piece!
the pierced hamsas are a typical Tunisian design. Another ingredient of the fragrant beads is ambergris from the belly of the sperm whale. I bought some beads in Tunisia in 1996 and traded a few with the Oppers for their glass beads that I treasure.
And by the way, the fragrant beads that I have are still aromatic after 22 years!
Enjoy, Paula E

These scented paste beads are also described as "amber paste", presumably as a result of the incorporation of ambergris.

I have a necklace of these scented beads strung with silver filigree beads. The shah have remained fragrant for the more than twenty years since I acquired them. There is a reference and photo in Lois Dubin's, "The History of Beads" on pp. 149-150. She describes them as heart-shaped, scented beads called SHAH, made by Tunisian women according to an old Egyptian method. Contents are ambergris, rose petals, saffron, cloves, nutmeg and musk.

I am familiar with N. African scented paste beads, as described in previous replies, due to interactions with the Oppers, and Carole Huetner. In Mali and Ghana, they also make beads from danq—which is a gummy substance that has been pounded into a mass, and then formed into beads. Danq was routinely misidentified as "myrrh" for quite a long time (decades) until a correct ID was proposed—and probably many of us who collected beads since the early '70s have these beads.

In China, there are a number of preparations that are similar bead products, some of which are aromatic. These have been made from the ground-up dust of popular bead materials—such as bone, ivory, and wood—using some binder to glue the material(s) into a reconstructed mass. I refer to all of these materials as "composition." Chinese composition can be molded (to form beads, that are essentially all alike), though sometimes it was actually carved.

Brown composition, made from wood dust, has been characterized as "molded wood."

In the '80s, it was possible to acquire some very beautiful beads that had a gray base, covered with colored lacquer, that were then carved. At the time, these were marketed as "pressed incense ash," and they were slightly aromatic. Whether the material was actually reconstructed ash from incense, I don't know. But I wish I had more (!).

JDA.