Hello Hans,
Recently, new beads have been coming out of this area (Morocco and Mauritania), made from stones that I assume are brought in from elsewhere (the market for decorative minerals now being international). We had some messages about this a while back.
The shapes of these beads easily recall the well-known Tuareg silver beads that many African bead-sellers have in their inventories.
I doubt your beads have any regional tradition otherwise—though they are handsome beads.
Jamey
Thank you Jamey and Luan for your reactions. In a few days I hope to recieve a couple of these beads. I wil try to make a good closeup of a bead / hole and wil post them. I am still puzzled about what kind of stone it could be, hans
....there's that one about 2/3 of the way up on the right (okay, the fifth full bead from the top) has lines in it that look like the pottery that has horsetail hairs burned into it during the firing. (Call me crazy....) :^)
They look like beautiful beads--LOVE the color! Can't wait til the mystery is solved! :^)
I believe this is Aqua Terra Jasper (although it's known by other names as well.) It's got a beautiful combination of cool blue and warm beige/gold tones. It's one of my favorites.
My friend send me a package with some beads of the necklace I showed before in this thread.
The hardness of the beads on the scale of Mohs is between 5 and 7( a light scratch in glass and no scratch with a steel knive) I believe the stone is a kind of chalcedone, notice the shell like flakes on the blue bead (jasper is also chalcedone I think). The holes in the beads look pecked from two sides instead of drilled. The biggest (broken) bead on the pictures is 23mm in diam. The smallest 7mm and they look to have a good age and were used well.
Thank you for suggesting Jasper, it was a good starting point for searching.
The side of the holes in the new pictures have a kind of roughness, maybe it's possible the holes are pecked instead of drilled? I am very curious and like to hear others opinion on this
Hello Hans,
I only know of one industry in West Africa where beads have been perforated by pecking—this being at Ilorin in Nigeria, where most of such beads are brick-red jasper (though the literature suggests they also worked agate), and are called "lantana" beads.
I went to Ilorin myself in 1998, to investigate this industry. One of my team-mates managed to meet the last of the beadmakers, while I was elsewhere. He was shown a hand-tool, called and "esoro" or "esauro," that is essentially an awl, that was used for pecking.
Pecking is arduous, and probably results in a lot of breakage. Though I suppose someone who has the knack is probably more successful.
In any event, pecking is pursued by beadmakers who are unskilled in drilling—drilling being the efficient and preferred manner of perforating. Particularly, hard stones would be difficult to peck.
I am not certain that all of the beads you are showing here are the same material (even if they are similar colors). Some appear to be amazonite beads; while others—the beads you began with—look more like jasper. Amazonite is a much softer stone—though (being a feldspar with an easy cleavage) amazonite is also much easier to break when undergoing any lapidary process.
I have handled quite a few old amazonite beads from this region. Although they are FREQUENTLY said to be "ancient," I am very disinclined to believe this suggestion. I don't doubt some are old or antique..., but I'd be surprised if many are actually ancient. (I believe that quite a few large green specimens are actually recent beads, that are passed-off as "ancient.")
I have said MANY times, the idea that these beads are "neolithic," and that this makes them "ancient" is easily mistaken. "Neolithic" describes a level of technology. In Asia and Europe, the early times of neolithic cultures has been well-demonstrated. However, in Africa, in some regions, people may have been exploiting neolithic technology as recently as the early 20th century (!). To me, it makes more sense to refer to these as "primitive" beads, in terms of their technology, and to avoid any unintended suggestion that these beads are extremely old.
Whatever, the amazonite beads I have seen appear to be drilled. Many have large circular perforation channels—such as are made with rotary tools (drills). I would be surprised if any are pecked—though it's certainly not impossible.
The crystalline texture of amazonite and jasper are very different from one another. Amazonite is generally spotty in color (with white or pale streaks or spots), and some tendency to be chatoyant (reflecting light, like a "cat's eye"). It can also be opaque of feebly translucent—whereas jasper is always quite opaque, and is much more fine-grained (though structurally fibrous—which is what distinguishes it from agate or chalcedony). It is usually visually possible to distinguish between these minerals using a hand-lens.
Jamey
Sorry for my short answers all the time, but I can't express myself in english the way a really want it. This Jasper bead is 24,2x15,1 mm and biggest diam. hourglass shaped hole is 4,2mm.
Hello Hans,
I will show some lantana beads. They normally have small perforations. And, because of how they are made, they are tight and not straight-sided—and the channel does not look rotary-drilled and circular.
Jamey
