I love your beads. Chalcedony, even more than jade, is my favourite among all the stones that were used in ancient cultures. I love that sort of misty mysteriousness that it has - kind of like opals but without the fuss! I don't think it was ever as valued as lapis or jade or as popular as carnelian, but there's nothing as stunning as a big chalcedony bead that has blue clouds swirling through it. I saw some very old Bactrian examples in a private collection when I was in northern Pakistan earlier this year. They were said to come from a site near Balkh in Afghanistan that had been dated to the late third millennium BC. But chalcedony went on being used in that area and also in central India right up to our own time. None of the Balkh beads was as pure blue as yours; they were beautiful in a different way, with the blue mixed in with a waxy grey-brown base. Yours really are stunning. Do you have any way of tracing them back to where they came from?

Will