Yellow Hebron beads also know as Kano beads on a 17-inch, high-graded strand of beads ranging in size from 12 to 22mm diameter
The earliest Hebron beads were made in Hebron near Jerusalem by beadmakers who emigrated from Tyre in Syria. Production began around 1100 BC and continued until the late 1880s. They used salt from the Dead Sea as the alkali which helps researchers identify their source and age.
The yellow version has been treasured in Sudan, and later traveled by camel caravan to other parts of Africa. The name Kano is from a Nigerian bead market town where these beads could often be found found. There were always rumors that Hausa traders had a warehouse full of them somewhere in the area, though I never found it.
Some yellow Kano beads have been reworked, either by grinding or melting and reshaping, into other kinds of beads in Ghana, where yellow is also the favorite bead color, possibly for its resemblance to gold.
Collected in Sudan in the mid-1970s by Joyce Diamanti, bead researcher, writer and educator.
Only one available, but for a shorter strand see JSD-136
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