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Graduated Antique Well Worn Green Hebron Beads - Rita Okrent Collection (AT1905b)

RARE FIND: only one in our inventory

Graduated strand of green Hebron beads, with a rare white Hebron-like bead and a brown striped Hebron-like bead mixed in.

Why We Love It
Lovely wear, with plenty of smaller beads included
The unusal white bead and the brown striped bead make this strand stand out
Looks beautiful with gemstones or silver, or accented with Venetian glass beads

You will receive the strand in the photos.

Provenance: Hebron - Egypt - Nigeria Age: 18th to mid-19th century

Dimensions: 47 beads, ranging from 12–23mm diameter. Hole size 3–4mm. 23 inches / 58 cm of beads (26 inches including raffia).
Condition:  Lots of wear, some of which may be dirt; will clean up with a little olive oil or a wash in water.
History: Hebron was a glass beadmaking center of the Islamic world since at least the 14th century. Beads like these were made from local glass, using sand from the village of Bani Na'im and alkali from the Dead Sea. They were produced from at least the mid-18th century until roughly 1850–1870. Traders carried them to Cairo, then up the Nile and across the desert caravan routes to Darfur and Wadai, where they were known as mongur and worn by women as hidden waist strands. Once they fell out of fashion there, Hausa traders bought them up and had the ends ground down so they would sit snugly on a strand. They resold them in Kano, northern Nigeria, and as far as Ghana. 

(Reference: Peter Francis Jr., "Beadmaking in Islam: The African Trade and the Rise of Hebron," BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers 2, 1990.)

African Item 1905b

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