Nepalese or Tibetan "skull" bone beads inlaid with chips of turquoise, and tiny seed beads in white and orange meant to imitate seed pearls and coral.
4 to 7mm thick by 12-15mm diameter. Sold as sets of 3 beads.
Are they real skull bone, if so whose? Well the dealers will tell you that they belonged to monk. I also asked a medical student and he said they could only be part of a shoulder blade as those were the only parts that sandwich a porous part between to solid parts, no opinion from him on who the skull or shoulder blade might belong to. Yak has been proposed as a possible contender.
I can't say I think they are pretty, and this batch looks well used and saturated with oil of some kind, but without any smell. They are an example of how humans seem to be willing to turn just about anything in the world into a bead!
These are from the collection of my mom, Joyce Diamanti, world traveler, not in the least squeamish, bead researcher, writer and educator.
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