Hello Anne,

Your beads, and many that are recovered from the Niger River occupation sites, dating from ca 1,000 years ago, are mosaic-glass beads. That means they were composed from pre-formed multicolored elements. Among the mosaic-glass types, the most-common and most-admired type is millefiori work. But there are other types of mosaic-glass. And different types or aspects can be combined together.

Without actually having handled and examined your bead(s), I would say that they are probably from the group I call "ribbon-glass." A straitified block has been stretched and reduced to a long thin striped element; and then a piece of this component has been hot-worked to become a bead.

This process is the essence of mosaic-glass work. The glassworkers first make multicolored elements. Then, once they have these elements, they proceed to use them to make beads.

This was an original and impressive strategy, that replaced the much more labor-intensive approach of taking some glass from a crucible, and manipulating it into a bead. The most-impressive examples of direct crucible work are the Phoenician Period head pendants and eye beads from ca. 500 BCE.

The genius of performing mosaic-glass work is three-fold: 1) beads with similar matching patterns can be made easily and much more quickly; 2) The patterns are more intricate and detailed than is direct furnace-work: 3) great numbers of beads can be made in a much shorter expendature of time and effort. In addition, it's possible and likely that mosaic-glass elements were sold or traded to other (more primative) glass industries that did not make mosaic-glasses, thereby helping them make more-intricate beads.

Your thoughts on how your beads were made, essentially, suggest that a beadmaker did various things to make a bead. But this is not the process. The beadmaker exploited preformed elements that were available to him, and from them made your bead(s)—and probably many others.

Among the beads recovered from digs in Mali, the most-frequent color combination is translucent blue with white. We see this combination most-often with millefiori eye beads. But there are other mosaic-glass types, including ribbon-glass pieces being used similarly to millefiori (making patchwork beads), and beads with ribbons that were spirally-rolled to make striped beads.

There is a whole class of mosaic-glass beads in which the ribbons have beed stretched and applied to a mandrel, in a random (or predefined) process, that probably involved winding, looping, crossing, and other possible steps. And the point of this work was to make beads that imitate the bandings of banded agate beads. (And, of course, this was a strategy used by many beadmakers since antiquity, who made mosaic-glass beads in more-modern times, to copy the appearance of banded agate—these being called "agate-glass beads.")

There are also a lot of beads that are just plain translucent blue glass. All (or most) of these beads were probably made in Egypt, from post-Roman times. The occupation sites in Mali were essentially places where Islamic scholars went to "get away" from the bustle of busy thriving cities and communities—and they went to Mali for R&R, to study the Qoran, and to make and pursue trading partnerships. And, I suppose, they brought with them a lot of Egyptian glass beads to trade to local people. This is the "big piecture" I have after having studied these beads, and contemplated their origins and context since 1983.

I have discussed mosaic-glass technology a number of times here at the Forum. Here's a post from 2006:

http://beadcollector.net/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?fvp=/openforum/&cmd=iYz&aK=43528&iZz=43528&gV=0&kQz=&aO=1&iWz=0

Be well. Jamey

Thank You so much Jamey. I have seen similar beads labeled as "Ancient Islamic", and/or "Ancient Roman". I am always dubious, especially when it comes to beads being sold on eBay, though perhaps some are correctly labeled.

Your explanation makes sense, and "get it" now- just had never thought of or learned about the "ribbon glass" method.

I will follow your link and try to learn more...maybe I'll also find a general time span?

Thanks, as always, Anne

You are welcome Anne.

In the early excavation reports, the site was believe to encompass ca. CE 500 through ca. CE 1200. I don't know if this range has been refined or not.

Because "CE 500" could be regarded as being "Late Roman," the glass beads were popularly said to be "Roman." This was how they were described in the first edition of The History of Beads in 1987. At that time (1985 to '86) when I was consulting with Lois, I expressed my doubts that this was an accurate appraisal of the beads—and that I believed they were from later times. But the Mali beads were shown in The Bead Chart Timeline at this early date. It is has been often repeated.

In my opinion, "The Roman Period" encompasses 200 BCE to CE 200. Placing anything from a later time, and calling it "Roman" is essentially a technicality with a rationalization—but it becomes a selling factor to use the name to make the artifact seem "more important" and get a higher price for it.

Also, subsequent (though popular, and not necessarily archaeological) accounts have implied that the earliest beads from the excavations were the copious quartz and agate/carnelian beads (from India)—also suggesting that the glass beads would be from much later. I am comfortable suggesting a range of CE 1100 + or - ca. 100 years—placing them well-into the Islamic Period.

In the revised 2009 edition of The History of Beads, in The Bead Chart, you will find the Mali burial beads at CE 1100. Likewise, in Panini's book, Middle Eastern and Venetian Glass Beads (2008), you will also find them squarely in the Islamic Period. (I am cited for this advice in his book.)

There are several discussions of these dating issues here at the Forum, and elsewhere—mostly engaged by me.

Jamey

Jamey, That clears up a lot, and I thank you so much for the information.

Anne

It has been suggested that, possibly, your beads may not be Mali burial beads at all.

This is a proposition I had not considered.

Among beadmakers (or more-properly bead-alterers) in Ghana, there are some techniques they exploit to make new beads from old beads.

Among other things, they will take two or three drawn beads, stack them one-atop the other, heat them until they fuse, and then twist the resulting bead to make the stripes spiral. I have specimens where this was done with old rosetta beads.

Let us say the person began with a striped "Dutch cane bead." (These may or may not be Dutch, and could easily be Venetian.) They typically have three layers—these being blue-white-blue, with external white stripes. It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that someone could take one of these beads (or two stacked together, if necessary), heat it/them, pull the glass so that it becomes an elongated mass, and then make a wound bead—as described previously.

I suppose this is an idea to be considered. Jamey

Thought about that as at first I thought the center hole white stripes resembled what you see at the core of an Old Chevron- more or less. Upon close inspection I do not see the actual "zig-zag" you might expect and sometime do see in the African Re-worked beads.
I do have some of those, so know exactly what you are referring to. On the ones I have you can see hints and pieces of the actual (7 layer) Chevron design without much doubt. Of course, the Africans re-worked more than Chevrons... but the stripes reminded me of an old worn Chevron at first.
But I think you are right- it would be in the realm of possibilities, but I'm leaning more towards the Mali "Dug" origin.
Hey, Thanks!

May 2022

Reviewing this dialogue, I want to suggest that the beads in-question ARE those recovered at digs in Mali, and they are expressly FOLDED BEADS. They just happen to be broken folded beads—so their entire structure is not apparent. It has not been determined what the original bead construction would have been prior to folding. However (counter to ideas I promoted from the 1980s, and demonstrated in the 1990s), I now concur that most folded beads were geneally, initially, convex disks that had trailed spiral lines. These would not be mosaic-glass (as I had proposed).

It was some years until I had an opportunity to examine a few broken and unfinished folded beads, to inderstand their internal structure—which is why I recanted my propositions.

JDA.