History Told In Beads

A History Told In Beads
by Lynda Mc Daniel - Lapidary Journal

At a recent demonstration of bead-making techniques, two artisans introduced American audiences to their ancient traditions.

From across the sun-filled room, it looked a little odd. Up close, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. What appeared to be a simple blue string hanging within an exhibit of elaborate beaded jewelry was actually a necklace of Beads so delicate that it draped as softly as a strand of silk.

I would soon learn that these tiny beads are drilled by hand, without electricity or modern machinery. I would watch as they were painstakingly crafted with a precision developed centuries ago, using only humble tools -- a small handmade bow, a sheep's knuckle, a bowl of water. I would hear stories about four-day journeys into war-ravaged Afghanistan to buy the lapis, followed by the uncertainty of smuggling and the uncertainty of hours of hard work yet ahead. And about how, like this fine strand of beads, each one leading into the next, the ancient art of bead making led to important cultural developments in stone faceting, glass making, technology, and trade. Within this strand of beads, even smaller than what we call seed beads, lie the seeds of once-grand civilizations and the power of human expression.

The ancient Indus cities were built with baked brick and included some monumental buildings such as the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan. In the background is a later Buddhist period stupa. Courtesy of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan. The exhibit and bead-drilling demonstration was held at the Bead Museum and Learning Center in downtown Washington, D.C., as part of a larger exhibition entitled Great Cities, Small Treasures: The Ancient World of the Indus Valley, curated by Dr. Jonathan M. Kenoyer, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The exhibition, which will appear at its final U.S. venue, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California, through April 30, gives U.S. audiences their first opportunity to see the rarest and most precious Indus Valley objects from Pakistani museums.

INDUS UNCOVERED. The Indus civilization, which flourished between 2600 and 1900 B.C.E., achieved many historical firsts, but was not discovered until the late 1920s, when excavations opened at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in what is now Pakistan. Only then did the world learn how the Indus people built the first planned cities, controlled vast territories through trade and religion rather than warfare, may have developed writing as early as the Mesopotamians, and devised techniques for making agate beads and silver and gold jewelry that are still in use today, 4,000 years later.



A terra cotta female figurine shows how beads were worn; the many necklaces and the wide belt may represent the kind of belts made of carnelian that have been found at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and the other sites. Courtesy of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan. "Ever since I started my research in the Indus Valley civilization, 23 years ago, I've been working with bead makers in order to understand aspects of traditional technology that would help us to interpret the ancient archaeological materials," Kenoyer says. "But my interest in beads dates back to when I was a little kid. My parents, who were missionaries in India, have a photograph of me when I was five years old wearing a necklace of Job's tears beads that I bought when we visited a Zulu village in Durban, South Africa. They said I really wanted to buy those purple-dyed beads."

Kenoyer lived in India until he was 18 years old, returning to the U.S. to attend college at the University of California- Berkeley, where he earned his Ph.D. before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each year, from the end of December until May, he works at excavation sites in the Indus Valley.

His respect for and interest in beads grew as his archaeological excavations uncovered convincing evidence that beads were among humans' earliest expression of abstract ideas. Although not functional in the sense of a tool or a weapon, beads carry strong symbolic significance.

"We know beads are important," he says. "We find terra-cotta and carved stone figurines painted with pendants and multi-strand belts, probably carnelian belts. From looking at the figurines, I get an idea of the types of ornaments that the ancient men and women were wearing - bangles, beads, pendants, belts."

Archaeological finds reinforce the importance of beads in ancient societies. This adult woman from ancient Harappa was buried with two shell bangles on her left arm and five carnelian beads at her waist. Harrappa Museum Pakistan. Courtesy of the Harrappa Archaeological Research Project. Kenoyer explains that without written text, he cannot state exactly what these beads meant to residents of the Indus Valley, but written texts from Mesopotamia do reveal how that culture viewed certain stones. Lapis, for example, was used as protection against the evil eye. Carnelian, with its deep red color, related to blood and health. Even today, traditional belief maintains a relationship between health and many stones, such as carnelian, emerald, ruby, and serpentine.

"In burial sites in Harappa," Kenoyer continues, "we found one woman with five carnelian beads worn at her waist - no gold, no silver, just five beads. We don't know what those five beads meant, but they clearly were an amulet for protection against a health problem. She wore them in life, and when she died, they buried her with them because amulets are associated with an individual and cannot be passed on."

Excavations have also unearthed beaded ornaments that could be passed on, including a lavish belt made with long carnelian beads undoubtedly worn by a very wealthy woman. Kenoyer says that valuables like this were probably buried under the floor of a house or hidden behind a wall, and whoever hid them died before telling their whereabouts.

"Last year, we found a bead pot with 133 little beads and other trinkets, all of which came from a time period from 3300 to 1700 B.C. It's very exciting because in that one pot, we have the whole history of that site in terms of the technology, where they were getting their stone, how they were drilling them, and so on.

In the 1996 excavations at Harappa, a small pot was discovered that had a collection of 133 beads and amulets. These beads were made from a variety of natural rocks as well as some imitations that were meant to look like lapis lazuli, turquoise, and banded jasper. Harrappa Museum, Pakistan. Courtesy of the Harrappa Archaeological Research Project. "In Harappa, they started out with the simplest technique - just pecking at it and popping a hole through. Then we have drilling with tapered stone drills that were just a bit harder than the bead stone. Later, they developed exquisite drills that were especially designed to perforate long stones."

To do that, the Harappans made a drill from a special rock they kept secret, which allowed them to make beads that were longer, thinner, and more delicate than any other culture's in the world. The stone does not yet have an official name, though Kenoyer calls it "ernestite" after Ernest Mackay, the first modern-day person to find it. ("Mackayite" already refers to another stone, no relation to Ernest.) Following a host of tests - x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, microprobe studies - Kenoyer searched geological textbooks and reference volumes, but could not find a match.

While lapis in Mesopotamia helped ward off evil spirits, it meant something quite different in the land where it is mined -- Afghanistan. "Often places where things come from they have a different meaning from where they go," Kenoyer explains. "We may wear baseball caps for one reason here, but in India, if you wear a baseball cap, it means you are trying to be an American. The same with lapis. In Afghanistan, it was more important to make tiny beads, which they embroidered onto their clothing. The tiniest beads that we find are only about 1.5 millimeters long and one millimeter in diameter. The effort in making them was more important than the rock itself."