Beautiful mix of blue and aqua ancient Indo-Pacific beads 3-6mm, with none of the usual grey crizzlied coating that usually covers these beads when they've been buried for a long time.
short 18-inch strand, but in prime condition, from Djenne in Mali
The Indo-Pacific family of beads originated in Arikamedu in Southern India around 400 BC and quickly spread in all directions. Over the next few hundred years, they reached all over Southeast-Asia, throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and all the even to Scandinavia in Europe, becoming the "greatest little trade bead of all time" according to bead researcher Pete Francis.
They come in other colors, brown (mostly found in SE Asia) often aqua and blue from north Africa. Yellow and green are more rare. These days they are mostly coming to the US from the Sahara under an array of made up names, and burdened with fictitious stories that are less interesting than the truth.
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