ArtFire

This ancient Iranian faience bead string includes several newer beads, such as the four shiny perfectly round red carnelian beads and the likewise shiny round black obsidian or glass beads. The intriguing hand shaped bicone and multi-facted carnelian beads and the many old faience beads are the typical blue and white of Afghan-Iranian bead manufacture sites.

Note the central amulet. It is made with the one of the favorite amuletic symbol of this region for thousands of years: the ram's horn, either singly or in pairs, such are they are shown here. This is probably hand-shaped, as was often done in the early days of faience manufacture.

The tube beads were probably fashioned on a *stick* that burned away in the firing, leaving a tube of rudimentary pigmented glass that could be divided into sections that made beads. The tubular beads were probably once the deep blue that we see on the edge of the amulet. Being in contact with the earth for at least 1900 years bleached out some of the pigment.

The old carnelian also shows its age by acquiring a matte surface as a result of exposure to chemicals and minerals in the earth.

For more information, consult Lois Sherr Dubin's timeline of faience production in the area of Afghanistan and Iran. Another source for photos of beads made exactly like these is included in Collectible Beads by Robert Liu.

While faience was first made in this region from the fourth millennium B. C., these particular old faience and carnelian beads are more likely to have been been made by the Iranians during the period 400 B. C. to 100 A. D.

Length of bead string = 24 inches

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