It's very good to hear from you. I just got back to Canada from Southeast Asia a short while ago and I've been trying to catch up with several months of the forum - so many interesting posts from around the world, but none more interesting than this additional information that you're giving us here.

Personally, I didn't - and don't - doubt the age and authenticity of some of these face beads that have been found around Shiraz, but the different colour combinations present a new and wider picture. Whether they were made in Shiraz is another question, however, and one that's much more difficult to answer. I think pretty much all the beads you show could have been manufactured in West Asia (Lebanon, Syria, Egypt) and traded east towards centres of wealth in Persia, Afghanistan and India - perhaps even as far as the coast of what is now Thailand. But there's a real probability to my mind that the technology spread also, and that new centres of production grew up along the trade routes. The only real proof of that would be archaeological, but if the archaeologists aren't interested, we're not going to get any help from that source - more's the pity. The only other evidence would be if quantities of beads were found in the new site that either in style or technique were not found anywhere else in the world. That's what happened with Jatim beads from East Java - many of them resemble West Asian beads but they are made quite differently. If something similar were discovered in Shiraz, then we would have the crucial proof we needed.

All the best,

Will

Below is a group shot of three tabular face beads I believe that the matching pair on the bottom were produced in Alexandria during Ptolemaic Egypt, or during the Roman occupation of Egypt, post Alexander. Just above those is an example of the red background yellow-face beads that have been the subject of at least part of the controversy. They look pretty good to me. When I acquired this one (from Kamol) the story was that they were more "Islamic era" than Roman.

Given the pictorial evidence that Ali is presenting however, the examples very much appear to be authentic Roman era, at least the surrounding beads are. The rare tabular floral patterns shown in the book pictures he showed are most likely Ptolemaic Roman as well. See my second picture for a group of six different that I bought many years ago from Bassem Elias. Unfortunately I only have one left, but they were rare and amazing beads.

So I vote positive for the authenticity of the Shiraz finds, and would lean towards mid to late Roman empire period for production..

Jan Skipper,
Mosquitobay

The second one is just odd-looking, reminds me of some of those supposed Alien images from Roswell, NM.

Both are very small inside. I apologize for the pic quality it is all I have in my files.

Here'a very similar bead from the New York Metropolitan Museum - said to be from the Eastern Mediterranean, 2000 years old.

Plus a more unusual one from the Miho Museum near Kyoto (the most beautiful musum in the world, I think).

All the best,

Will