Roman mosaic??

what are these? Indian?

are exquisite! I lust after them if you're ever thinking of passing them on :) Lynne

I like these beads a lot; I haven't seen the green ones before - they're a very "pure", intense colour for that period.

Thanks, Yankee, for placing them. They were found in the area of the north coast of the Black Sea, but is there evidence of them having been made there? Recently, I've been trying to find out more about the beads from that region, but so far have come across very little in English. One Russian source seems to say that only monochrome glass beads were actually made there, but I'm not sure that makes sense to me. Over the fifteen hundred years from the Hellenistic to the Islamic periods, there seem to be a lot of beads which have been excavated there that in design and colour appear to be found only rarely in Mediterranean or Persian sites. If that's the case, then one explanation that would have to be taken into account would be that they were manufactured somewhere in or around the area of the Crimea.

It was obviously a fascinating and complex meeting ground of cultures, with, on the one hand, the extremely wealthy Hellenistic and Roman ports that lined the coast, and then, inland, the Sarmatian and other Scythian-related nomadic tribes that controlled huge swaths of territory that ranged at times as far as the border of China. Beads would clearly have had quite different functions in these different cultures, but possibly they provided a point of contact between them. This is all just guesswork on my part. I'm sure Yankee knows much more than I do.

Best,

Will

Hello Will and all,
I'd like to start with the fact that though I have no knowledge of a bead workshop that was excavated in Crimea or the north black sea area, I strongly believe that only in Crimea they had at list half a dozen of them. I started collecting mostly Eastern Mediterranean and central Asiatic beads because this is my neighborhood. I got involved with the biggest antique dealers in this area, got to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of beads, ( funny, most of the dealers considered the beads as discarded in the early times. It's different now a days ). this is how I got to know beads, but every once in a while I got to see these beautiful examples of beads that were obviously ancient and had the look of an Egyptian mosaic bead for example, but something was different. I always wandered were they came from. Same case with eye beads with unordinary colors or different technique of manufacturing, (premanufactured eye). One day I purchased beads from a Russian guy in Israel. All the beads fell into the category of the ones I was wandering were they were coming from so I asked him and he told me he brought them from Ukraine. Needless to say that a week after I landed in Ukraine and started my Ukrainian bead hunt. I have been back there more than a dozen of times since. during these visits I got to meet diggers, dealers, archaeologists and academy people. I got to learn the history of this area. You see it's a very rich area with lot's of resources such as: on surface gold, Amber, wood and a very rich soil with a very fears inhabitant so each empire that started in the old world used it for its own necessities . Starting with the Phoenicians that built city states in the Black see area as they were expending. You can find in Crimea Pheonician beads very similar to the Eastern Mediterranean but still slightly different. they continued with this "Phoenicians design" long after the fall of Cartago. The Phoenicians as a Phoenician nation (if you like), were eliminated but the people and their skills continued. same with the Greek. They used the resources of this area ie;the Scythians served in the Greek army and they were considered as the " green barrettes" of today. They got their share of the loot only in gold.In that process they developed the infrastructure and expended the commodities that went in and out of that area and you can find amazing Greek beads there. As close to the source you are - you find more alike. same story with the Romans. When they concord that area ( most of the Roman era goldsmiths were Greek). So this area manufactured beads according to the fashion at that point of time. If the fashion in Alexandria was face beads, in no time they started to make face beads in Crimea as well. If you'd like you can contact me privetly and I will send you some catalogs of beads that I was able to translate & assemble from different publication in Russian and Ukrainian.All the best, Yankee.

Thanks, Yankee, for taking the time to write such a long and helpful reply. It confirms the hunch I had about beads from that area.

It's strange how we tend to think of the Mediterranean as having been a "Greek sea" during the Hellenistic area, but in fact the Black Sea was of equal importance for the Greek economy, and there were dozens of Greek trading ports dotted all around its coastline. And it opened - eastward - onto a much more exciting hinterland. Just at the same time it was the Scythians who were the major force in opening up the overland trade routes to China.

I've written to you privately already, but can you tell us something about the bead you attached? Also, I'd like to hear what you (or others) think about this nice little (11 mm) bead with different coloured eyes. At first, I thought it was one of the Persian/Parthian third-to-first century BCE beads that used (wrongly) to be called Amlash, but as I look at it some more, it seems somewhat different - the glass is less opaque and has a different texture and the stringing hole is wider. Or am I just imagining?

All the best,

Will

You probably already know this, but there are many glass beads from southern Russia in the displays at the wonderful Moscow Historical Museum in Red Square, Moscow.

Thanks, Paula. Sorry I didn't see this before. Yes, the Historical Museum is well worth a visit, but like most museums everywhere they tend to display much more gold than other materials. The Museum of Oriental History has a great collection of jewellery from the Caucasus and Central Asia but most of it is hidden away and they don't show it online. Even the Hermitage, the most fabulous museum in the world, is way behind on that score.

Best,

Will

Bead with red (eyes) 5-4 BC

On this site there is its later dating 2 BC
E378
http://www.ancienttouch.com/ancientbeads-eye-antiquity.htm

Two Mosaic 2 - 1 BC
Ancienttouch MS 17
http://www.ancienttouch.com/ancientbeads-mosaic-antiquity.htm