Product Description
Antique Bead Necklace 3
Style: Afghanistan
Size: Height 29 cm
Order Number: MHSAII3
Very rare, old black amber beads, and silver dots.
Bead making has been a highly valued skill throughout the world from the earliest times, at least for 40,000 years. Techniques invented by the Ancient Egyptians and Romans are still used today.
They have been used to guard against evil and as adornment. They can indicate a person’s rank and marital status. They are portable wealth and are traded. They are used as amulets in some societies
They are used by religions. The word bead comes from the Anglo-Saxon biddan, meaning to pray. Roman Catholic rosary beads contain a set number of beads for counting prayers, for example 150 for the psalms. Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu rosaries have 108 beads.
The makers guard their techniques closely. In the 13th and 14th centuries the Venetian Doges monopolised world glass making. in 1292 the glass makers were moved to the island of Murano and forbidden to reveal their secrets or even leave. If they did, the punishment was death.
Beads can be made from anything: bone, horn, glass, wood, metals such as gold, silver, bronze, and brass, ceramic, ivory, seeds, berries, stones, shells, pearls, coral, amber, jet and even plastic.
The powerful east Javanese king Kertanegara, whose capital was in Singosari, was brilliant and erudite but brutal and a drunkard.
Kertanegara was murdered in 1292 AD, probably during a Tantric ritual. Raden Vijaya, a Javanese prince, married all his daughters and founded a new dynasty called Majapahit, which means ‘bitter gourd’ from the name of the trees that grew in the fields where he lived. He built a small city as his capital and named it Trowulan.
The dynasty lasted from 1293 to around 1527 and reached its peak of glory during the reign of Hayam Wuruk (1350 – 1389). He carried out conquests that extended throughout Southeast Asia.
Majapahit was one of the last major Hindu empires of the region and one of the greatest and most powerful empires in the history of Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Map of Indonesia.
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