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Beads in India and West Asia

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Indian Agate Beads

The world's leading stone bead industry for over 4500 years. Ancient, medieval and modern trade, beadmaking, typology, sources and centers.

Left: Three steps in the making of beads from stone. At the top are roughouts, chipped into a crude shape from the raw stone. The second row shows blanks that have been ground to shape. The third are finished, polished beads.

1982, WBMS 6, ISBN 0-910995-05-2, 51 pp., 2 color plates, figures, maps. -- $8.00

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The Glass Beads of India

One of the world's major glass bead industries is published for the first time with historical and archaeological examinations and fieldwork.

Right: India made glass beads at an early date. Arikamedu, from where these beads come, was one of the first places drawn beads were made. These Indo-Pacific beads were the most important trade beads of all time.
	The successors to the Indo-Pacific beadmakers now live in a small village in southern India. This book was the first to document their unique method of beadmaking that has been in use now for some 2400 years. The beads on the wire are put on babies for protection against evil influences. I bought it at a country market.

1982, WBMS 7, ISBN 0-910995-06-0, 27 pp., 2 color, 6 b&w plates, map. -- $6.00

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Bead Emporium: A Guide to the Beads from Arikamedu in the Pondicherry Museum

Arikamedu was long "Beadmaker to the World," pioneering innovations in both glass and stone beads. This is a guide to the displays designed by Pete Francis.

Left: Top left and center a first century mosaic bead and a gold-glass bead, both Egyptian. Top right is a broken lapis lazuli bead, part of the exchange between what are now Afghanistan and South India. Bottom a broken onyx and an agate pendant, both perforated lengthwise through the top. The onyx was humanly-induced.

1987, Pondicherry Museum Publications 2, 35 pp., color plate.-- $6.50

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Third World Beadmakers

History, techniques and beads made in Afghanistan, Turkey and Pakistan. Exploded the myth that there have been few glass beadmakers at any one time.

Top row from Pakistan. North Indian glass beadmakers were converted to Islam around 1700. At Independence about half went to Pakistan and work there (for those that stayed in India see The Glass Beads of India).

Bottom row from Heart, Afghanistan made by a family who fled Uzbekistan in 1926. Where they are now is anyone's guess. They are apparently descendants of the ancient beadmakers of Damascus.

1979, WBMS 3, ISBN 0-910995-02-8, 15 pp., 2 color plates, map, figures. -- $6.00

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Plants As Human Adornment in India

Scientific survey of plants used for beads and other adornment. Many of the important ones are in the Organic Beads section of this site. Some 170 species are identified. Reprint from Economic Botany 1984 38(2), 16 pp. -- $4.00

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Etched Beads in India by M.G. Dikshit (1949)

The last ones available anywhere. The publisher is now out of stock.

Exclusive Import, The classic work on one of the most famous beads in the world. Profusely illustrated.

Right: Beads of (Beck's) Type III and Dikshit's new Variety A and B.

Paperback, 79 pp. 19 plates. -- $19.95

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Glass, Glassbeads and Glassmakers in Northern India by Jan Kock and Torben Sode (1995)

Exclusive Import

This 32-page booklet has the best documentation of Purdalpur, India (center of Indian glass bead export) and Firozabad (producer of most raw decorative glass) published. An important addition to Francis' The Glass Beads of India.

Left: A worker in Papanaidupet winding a glass bead in the traditional manner.

[Wholesale available on this title]

32 pp., 36 color and 25 b&w plates, 5 drawings. --$10.00

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The following issues of the Margaretologist also have articles on beads from South Asia:

1(3) Arikamedu Bead Census. Chinese Glass Beads. Side Trips and Updates. Buy It

2(2) Asian Maritime Bead Trade ca. 1^st to 12^th Centuries. Buy It

2(4) Etymology of "Bead." Baba Ghor. Ruby Red Glass. Takua Pa inscription. Buy It

4(2) Some Thoughts on the Bead Trade (International Bead Conference II address) Buy It

5(1) Mutisalah. Pumtek. Indo-Pacific and Coil Beads. Buy It

5(2) Site X. Modern Millefiori. Southeast Asia. Buy It

6(2) South Indian Stone Beads. Glass Beads Technology Transfer in Southeast Asia. Buy It

7(1) Bead Sample Cards. Gooseberry Beads in the Slave Trade. More on South Indian Stone Beads. Grants, Alert. Buy It

11(1) Glass, Glass Analysis and the Analyses of Indo-Pacific beads. Color plates for IE here Color plated for NN here. Buy It

13 (2) Final Report on Arikamedu (the most important beadmaking site ever) Plates here Buy It

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