Hefty graduated aqua Indo-Pacific beads 5-10mm, with just enough patina to add texture, some color variation and a hint of their antiquity
26-inch strands, found near Djenne in Mali in the 1980s
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 way to Scandinavia in Europe, becoming the "greatest little trade bead of all time" according to bead researcher Pete Francis.
They come in other colors, often aqua and blue, and these days are mostly coming to the US from the Sahara under a bevy of inaccurate names and burdened with fictitious stories that are far less interesting than the truth.
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